Who is Frodo Baggins's older cousin and guardian at Bag End?

Bilbo Baggins is Frodo Baggins’s older cousin and guardian at Bag End.

Frodo’s parents died in a boating accident when he was twelve, after which he spent several years with his mother’s Brandybuck relatives. When Frodo came of age at 21, Bilbo adopted him and brought him to Bag End in Hobbiton.

The family relationship is more complicated than the story’s casual language suggests. Bilbo and Frodo called each other “uncle” and “nephew,” but they were technically cousins once removed through both the Baggins and Brandybuck family lines. Bilbo was also Frodo’s adoptive guardian and heir-maker.

Bilbo’s role is crucial to the wider story: he possessed the One Ring for decades before leaving it to Frodo. At his eleventy-first birthday party, Bilbo departed the Shire, and Gandalf later helped Frodo understand the Ring’s danger. Fredegar Bolger, Peregrin Took, and Meriadoc Brandybuck were friends or relatives, but none was Frodo’s guardian at Bag End.