Blood Relations and Family Tree

Blood relations is a very important topic of any Aptitude Test. Such questions may be asked directly or may be given in the form of coded blood relations or data sufficiency questions. Some of the tricks to solve Blood relations questions are as following:

1. Apply the question to yourself
2. Break the question into very small parts
3. Do not assume the gender
4. Draw clear diagrams as you solve

It defines relation among different members of a family. Association between two persons can be by birth or by law.

Example:

Mother-Son, Grandfather- Grandson Relationship are all by birth relationships whereas,
All in-laws' relationships like "father in law - son in law", "mother in law-daughter in law" can be classified under "Relationships by law".

Importance of topic

i) This is one of the most important topics in logical reasoning.
ii) Questions from this topic are asked in almost all the examinations like ISSB, NUST NET, and others.

Key Points

i) No illegal Relations.
E.g.
(1) A Husband can't have two wives.
(2) No girlfriends / boyfriends.
ii) Never judge gender from name. E.g. "Kiran" can be a Male or a Female.

Pre-Requisites

Go through all the relationships mentioned in the family tree. It will help you in identifying the relationships easily.

Father of Father or Mother Grand Father
Mother of Father or Mother Grand Mother
Wife of Grandfather Grand Mother
Husband of Grand Mother Grand Father
Father - in - Law of Father/Mother Grand Father
Mother - in - Law of Father/Mother Grand Mother
Father’s Father/Mother only son Father
Brother of Father or Mother Uncle
Sister of Father or Mother Aunt
Son of Grand Father/Grand Mother Father/Uncle
Daughter of Father - in - Law/Mother - in - Law of Father Mother / Aunt
Father of Wife/Husband Father - in - Law
Mother of Wife/Husband Mother - in - Law
Father’s / Mother’s only son/daughter Oneself
Son / Daughter of Uncle/Aunt Cousin
Brother of Husband or Wife Brother - in - Law
Sister of Husband or Wife Sister - in - Law
Husband of Sister/ Sister - in - Law Brother - In - Law
Son of Brother or Sister Nephew
Daughter of Brother or Sister Niece
Husband of Daughter Son - in - Law
Wife of Brother / Brother - in - Law Sister - in - Law
Wife of Son Daughter - in - Law

Suggestions

i) Use symbols and notations like +, -, =, etc. for depicting relationship among two members.
E.g. Sara is a wife of Saleem, we can use = symbol for showing relationship Between Saleem and Sara. Like, Saleem = Sara.
ii) Try to solve the questions by applying it on one's own family.
iii) Break the given sentence at is/was/as and resolve it from last point to is/was/as to get easy solution for the problem

Types of Questions

In Blood Relations there are mainly 3 types of questions asked.

1) Round-About Questions

These are Relations between two people only and questions are asked in a round-about manner.

For example:

(A) Raheem introduces Parveen as the daughter of the only son of my father's wife. How is Parveen related to Raheem?

1. Cousin
2. Niece
3. Daughter
4. Aunt

Explanation: Break the given sentence at as.
Resolving from the last, In the view of Raheem,
My father's wife - mother
Only son of mother - himself i.e. Raheem
Daughter of Raheem - daughter.
So, answer is daughter.

(B) Introducing a girl, a boy said, "She is the daughter of the mother of the daughter of my aunt." How is the girl related to the boy?

1. Cousin
2. Niece
3. Daughter
4. Aunt

Explanation: Break the given sentence at is.
Resolving from the last,
Daughter of my aunt - cousin
Mother of my cousin - aunt
Daughter of my aunt - cousin.
So, answer is cousin.