How to accurately record a familial adoption

[HarrisonHart]

My Uncle and Aunty formally adopted and raised one of their sons children.
So that child is the formal child of my uncle and aunty by law and by the way she was raised - making her my first cousin (by adoption). 
But she is the biological child of my first cousin - making her my first cousin once removed.

It would be inappropriate not to include her in my list of first cousins because my uncle and aunty insisted on a formal adoption which was accepted by my cousin.

So should I just record her as an adopted child of my uncle and aunty or should I record her as the biological child of my first cousin?  Or some other method?

Help appreciated!

[dawnsh]

Does your family tree program allow for this type of adoption?

Theoretically, the child should appear twice in your tree, as a birth child and an adopted child.

Maybe use the notes field to explain the scenario as you have done here.

[HarrisonHart]

I cant think of what I mean ("double dipping" is not right but might explain a bit), its just the number of cousins is affected depending on if I count my relative as a daughter or grand daughter of my aunty and uncle, or both).  Do I have 50 first cousins on that side, or 49, for instance.  Why does it matter?  I don't suppose it does it's just I am not sure what is fact.  I don't like saying every time, to my first cousins, that "there are 50 of us, well there are 49 plus xyz who is the daughter of xyz but was adopted by aunty x and uncle y making her a first cousin as well as a first cousin once removed"... it seems like singling her out, devaluing her position in some way... and yet without saying it, the tree is not factual.  headache.

[Marmalady]

I would include her twice -- with a note to explain her history

If your aunt & uncle had adopted a non-related child she would have been included in their family
And likewise if your cousin's child had been adopted out of the family, she would have been included in your cousin's family

So why not include her in both families?

[HarrisonHart]

True enough. 

[Jebber]

If as you say, the  child was legally adopted by the grandparents then, she is just as much your first cousins as if she was born to them. She should also be shown as your cousin's daughter, thus your first cousin once removed, with note, adopted out.

Hope this helps.

[ThrelfallYorky]

I had a similar problem that I couldn't seem to record satisfactorily on an online tree: A young girl, birth daughter of a servant, who may have been employed by the family, certainly a family member was the one who registered the birth, was recorded as adopted in one census only. We know who her mother was, there is a possibility her father may have been a family member. She was later married from the family home. She gave the Christian and middle names of her adopted father to her own son .... this was in the 19th Century. There doesn't seem to be a way to record her as adopted. She certainly wasn't the child of the wife, and probably not the child of the husband. She kept her own surname until marriage .... but her birth mum came from the same area as her adoptive mother, in another area of the country ..... what a muddle!