Introduction 

Blood relationship, or simply relationships, is a few essential topics in the context of logical reasoning. But it’s easier to solve when you use the graphical representation of the family lineage.

First, let us find concepts related to relationships!

Any relationship is a connection or bond between two people. Hence, blood relation is the connection amongst family members by birth or blood. 

Additionally, when two people get married, they form different relations with their families. Hence, the relations formed through marriage are considered as blood relationships.

Types of Blood Relationships

There are three blood relationship reasoning questions in the general intelligence and reasoning section. They are:

• Family tree
• Pointing to a person
• Equation-based

• Family Tree:

The tree has firm roots and a sturdy stem that diverges out to get leaves. In the case of a family tree, the roots are your ancestors. The branches are the children and leaves, the grandchildren. In simple terms, the family tree is visually represented to understand pedigree or lineage. This genealogy chart in a tree structure gives a better insight into your blood relationship with varied members of the family. 

A family tree blood relationship problem involves questions related to two distinct family members. To solve such questions, you need to be thorough with the fundamental relationships between all family members. 

Example: Ram is the son of Shyam. Hari is the father of Vipul. Ram and Vipul are cousins. Ram is married to Rekha. Raghu is the brother of Rekha. Shyam has only one son. Neha is the daughter of Ram. Akash is the son of Raghu. What is the relationship between Ram and Akash? 

Solution: Firstly, you must draw the family tree, including all the mentioned members. From this pedigree chart, you can see that Ram is the brother-in-law of Raghu. Therefore, Raghu’s son Akash is the nephew of Ram and Ram is the uncle of Akash. 

• Pointing to a person:

These relationship problems involve a person pointing at or introducing someone through conversations. It would help if you found out the relation between the two persons. 

Example: Ram pointed to a lady and said, “she is the sister of my mother’s father’s only grandson.” How is the lady related to Ram?

Solution: Ram’s mother’s father is his grandfather. The grandfather has only one grandson, Ram. The lady is the grandson’s sister, which means Ram’s sister. So, the correct answer would be Sister. 

• Equation-based Problems: 

In these relationship problems, symbols or codes are used to denote the members of a family, such as +, %, @,! $, etc. It would help if you decoded the given symbols to solve the questions. 

Example:

M + N —-> N is M’s brother.

M × N —-> N is M’s husband.

M – N —-> M is N’s mother.

M % N —> M is N’s father.

Deduce the relation between Q and T from the given formula “Q-R+S%T”?

Solution:

The above problem implies:

• = brother

• = mother

       % = father 

Hence, we can deduce the given equation as 

Q = mother (P )

S = brother ( R )

S = father ( T )

Therefore, T’ s grandmother is represented as Q. 

Few fundamental Terms Used In Relationship Questions:

Maternal: Relations from the mother’s side.

Paternal: Relations from the father’s side.

Parents: Father/ Mother

Children: Son/ Daughter

Spouse: Wife/ Husband

Siblings: Brother /Sister (both share same parents)

Cousin: Children of aunt and uncle.

Aunt: Mother’s sister, father’s sister, mother’s brother’s wife, father’s brother’s wife.

Uncle: Father’s sister’s husband, mother’s sister’s husband, mother’s brother, father’s brother, Niece: Daughter of brother or sister.

Nephew: Son of brother or sister.

Mother-in-law: Spouse’s mother.

Father-in-law: Spouse’s father.

Sister-in-law: Brother’s wife, spouse’s sister

Co-sister: Wife of spouse’s brother.

Brother-in-law: Sister’s husband, spouse’s brother

Co-brother: Husband of spouse’s sister.

Tips for Blood Relationship Problems

• To begin with, identify the two people in the question between whom the relationship is to be found out.
• Next, identify all the relationships in the middle of these two people and their gender.
• Drawing a family tree structure of all the blood relations given in the question is the easiest way to solve the problem. It helps determine the generations and the positions of each family member. You can use notations to represent the relationships between the family members. 
• Extract the relationship between the two people directly from the graphical representation. 
• Most importantly, please do not assume the gender of a person from their names unless otherwise mentioned.
• In the case of the family tree and conversation-based questions, you should consider “Me” to be the introducing person. 
• Few relationship questions use the words “only son” or “only daughter.” Only a son or daughter doesn’t mean the only child. For example, if X is the only son of Y, then Y may have one son and one daughter or just one son. 

Conclusion

Blood relationship problems are fundamental topics in general intelligence and logical reasoning. There are a lot of study materials to understand the concepts of relationships, both online and offline. You can also ask relationship reasoning questions in Hindi and many other languages.  

There are two basic requirements to solve relationship problems. Firstly, you must know the basic terms related to different family relations types. 

Moreover, it’s essential to understand how to draw a family tree and extract information.