Great Aunt or Grand Aunt?

[Daft Bat]

My Gran's sisters were always called Auntie Glad, Auntie Ada, Auntie Nell etc when I spoke to them but as GREAT Aunt when referred to in conversation with my Mum or Gran.

However, I do see such relatives also referred to as GRAND aunt. I suppose that this makes sense as they are the sisters of my GRANDmother.

Are they great or grand to you?

(Just random thoughts...)

 

[LianeH]

Always Great Aunt - as they were always Great

 

[AnnB]

Always Great to me and always will be - can’t be doing with any of these new fangled terms

 

[Chimp]

Great to me too

 

[GrannyBarb]

Another Great Aunt here... really, my sister has scads of grandkids!

 

[Half Hour]

Great to me as well. Through my hubby's family we have great, great, great nieces and nephews ...His sister was a lot older than him and all the females in her line had children when young. We are 3 times great!!

 

[Jellylegs]

Great to me too.

 

[Jellylegs]

Great to me as well. Through my hubby's family we have great, great, great nieces and nephews ...His sister was a lot older than him and all the females in her line had children when young. We are 3 times great!!

 

[Sandiep]

first time I ever heard Grand Aunt said was on my Ancestry Tree think its an American saying.........Only ever knew them as Great Aunts personally

 

[Bay Horse]

Great, always.

 

[Libby]

I’m a Great Aunt and all my grandparents siblings were great aunts and great uncles.

 

[Sis]

Great Aunt for me.

 

[Andromeda]

Great here too, but Grand makes so much more sense.

 

[Archie's Mum]

Great here. Grand would make me feel ancient.

 

[Doug]

My great aunts were pretty grand I thought.

 

[Findem]

Always great to me, no grands in my lot.

 

[Daft Bat]

Well, from the responses above, it looks like GREAT is a British thing, whereas GRAND is more from America.

Hmmm...

 

[Archie's Mum]

I'm a two times Great. Im also finding some teeny weeny1st cousins twice removed who's grandfather told me they were second cousins. I soon put him right.

 

[GrannyBarb]

I mildly object to Grand Aunt being an American thing. The U.S. based genealogy and dictionary companies all say that Grand is "technically" more correct, but that "Great" is more commonly used. Please consider that a lot of their "technical" staff are international these days.

 

[Bay Horse]

Am I right in thinking that the British version of Ancestry originally had 'great' in their relationship sub-headers and then changed to 'grand' a few years back?
*Or did I dream it?

(*Note I say 'or did I dream it?' a fair bit nowadays, which seems better than, 'or am I losing my marbles?')

Is it possible, then, rather than it being an American thing, that it might be something to do with Familysearch? Or indeed RootsTech?