Cousin vs. Niece

Main Difference

The main difference between Cousin and Niece is that the Cousin is a any descendant of ancestors sibling and Niece is a child of one’s sibling or half-sibling.

• Cousin

  Commonly, “cousin” refers to a “first cousin” or equivalently “full cousin”, people whose most recent common ancestor is a grandparent. A first cousin used to be known as a cousin-german, though this term is rarely used today.More generally, cousin is a type of familial relationship in which people with a known common ancestor are both two or more generations away from their most recent common ancestor. This distinguishes a cousin from an ancestor, descendant, sibling, aunt, uncle, niece, or nephew.Systems of “degrees” and “removals” are used in the English-speaking world to describe the exact relationship between two cousins (in the broad sense) and the ancestor they have in common. Various governmental entities have established systems for legal use that can precisely specify kinship with common ancestors any number of generations in the past. Common usage often eliminates the degrees and removals, and refers to people with common ancestry as simply “distant cousins” or “relatives”.

• Niece

  In the language of kinship, a nephew is a son of a person’s sibling, and a niece is a daughter of a person’s sibling. Conversely, that person is the aunt or uncle of their niece or nephew. The relationship of aunt/uncle to niece/nephew is an example of second-degree relatives, meaning that their coefficient of relationship is 25%.

  The terms are also used colloquially for sons and daughters of siblings-in-law, even though there is no blood relationship.