Methodology

Our tools favor explainability over black-box answers. This page documents the math and indexing rules behind the site.

Relationship resolver

Phrases are tokenized (“mom’s cousin’s daughter”), expanded into generation steps, and mapped to cousin degree and removal using shared-ancestor distances. Half, step, adoptive, and in-law modifiers adjust labels without changing the underlying path.

Cousin calculator

Given generations from each person to a shared ancestor (A and B), cousin degree = min(A, B) − 1 and removal = |A − B|. Degree 0 covers siblings and aunt/uncle lines rather than cousins.

Name rarity scores

SSA names: rarity rises as latest-year count falls relative to the top name that year. Census surnames: log-scaled proportion versus the most common surname. Scores run 0–100 with labels Very Common through Very Rare.

Name Lab full-name estimate

P(full name) ≈ P(first name in latest SSA cohort) × P(surname in 2010 Census). The result is an expected rate per million births/population — not a census of living individuals. Missing either input yields an honest partial or unavailable state.

Search indexing

Names and surnames with summary rows marked indexable appear in search and sitemaps. Zero-result queries are logged (hashed) to improve coverage without storing unnecessary personal data.