Relations

Monday, the nice dinner party at Michelle and Robert’s ended abruptly. Michelle saw Ali and Carla canoodling in the hallway. Her son and her best friend, sister-in-law and cousin. So she exploded at them. Everyone else scuttled off quickly.

In the safety of the Rovers, Jenny said “how are they related again?”

Roy said the words so welcome to the ears of genealogy researchers. “I’ve got a paper and pencil, I can draw it out for you.”

But Robert stopped him. “I don’t think it’s quite the time, Roy.” Oh Robert, of course it’s the time! Let’s see Roy draw it so I don’t have to do it myself. 

I had been trying to remember how Carla and Ali are related when Jenny asked the question. So, with Robert cutting Roy off, I got out my pencil and paper and drew the family tree.

Michelle’s dad Barry and Carla’s dad Johnny are first cousins, according to ITV. So here is the chart that Roy would have made, given half a chance.

The family tree relations

(Whether you call Carla and Ali ‘second cousins once removed’ or ‘third cousins’ is discussed on the Coronation Street Blog. Look in the comments.)

In short, Carla is both cousin and aunt to Ali. She is his 2nd cousin once removed through Johnny, her bio-dad. Through her late husband Paul, Michelle’s brother, Carla is Ali’s aunt by marriage. There’s an ick factor there, but they didn’t grow up knowing they were family. 

Ali is Michelle’s bio-kid but she didn’t raise him. Carla is the child of a long-kept secret affair between her mother and Johnny. She grew up thinking of another man as her father. So maybe that’s the greatest ick factor – all these people carrying on with each other and not knowing that they’re related. Having relations with my relations – could be a country and western song.