According to that quote, here's a good way to figure this out:
Crazed only has to go two generations up whereas the baby has to go three generations up to find a common ancestor. Therefore we take two, the minimum of these two numbers, to correspond to the degree number. In this system, two = first degree, three = second degree, and so on.
Crazed is separated from the baby by 1 generation: both he and the baby's father are of the same generation since their common ancestor is the same number of generations away for each of them. So the baby is his first cousin, once removed. The removed number can immediately be taken from the first calculation, as
removed = |generations to common ancestor for person A - generations to common ancestor for person B|.
so if this little guy were to have kids that'd be my 2nd cousin, twice removed?
1st cousin, twice removed. You still only have 2 generations to go up to find the common ancestor (first cousin), but the baby's baby has 4 generations to go up (4-2 = 2, twice removed).
I think this is probably the clearest way of thinking about it:
Suppose we have Person A and Person B. Person A has to go up x generations to find the common ancestor between A and B. Person B has to go up y generations to find the common ancestor between A and B.
Cousin number = min{x,y} - 1
Removed number = max{x,y} - min{x,y} = absolute value of x-y = |x-y|
Ok, common ancestor = grandma.
A=me
B=My Cousin (ian)
C=My counsin's kid (william)
D=The kid's kid (will #2, for now)
for A & B common ancestor = 2 generations away, so we're same generation and not removed = cousins
A & C= A is 2 generations away, C is 3 generations away, 3-2 = 1st cousin Once removed
A & D = A is 2 generations away, D is 4 generations away, 4-2 = ...
That's where i'd get lost, I'm not seeing how Cousin# could be anything less than 2 because the common ancestor(grandma) is 4 generations for Will#2 and 2 generations for me. Unless common ancestor should be based on Cousin (ian).