Search icon

Family dynamics

25th Apr 2018

This is the average amount of living cousins every Irish person has

Orlaith Condon

You’d need more than your hands to count them.

When the extended family gets together, it can be an overwhelming reminder of how many people you can call relatives.

From first cousins to those a little more distant, your family tree can spread far and wide, however, we didn’t think we had quite so many relatives.

According to new research, every Irish person has on average 14,000 living cousins.

Yes, according to Ancestry.com, we all have on average 14,000 cousins when you take all of our first to eight cousins into account.

The site released the information to mark World DNA Day today and landed on the figure after comparing the DNA of 5,300 Irish people.

When it comes to the breakdown, it looks like the family tree of those from Ulster spreads a little further as they have on average 17,500 cousins living across the globe.

That is in comparison to those in Connacht who have roughly 13,500 cousins on average.