Kindred, is defined by the writers on these subjects to be, vinculum personarum ab eodem stipite descendentium; "the connexion or relation of persons descended from the same stock or common ancestor." This consanguinity is either lineal or collateral.
Lineal consanguinity is that which subsists between persons of whom one is descended in a direct line from the other; as between John Stiles (the propositus in the table of consanguinity) and his father, grandfather, great grandfather, and so upwards in the direct ascending line; or between John Stiles and his son, grandson, great grandson, and so downwards in the direct descending line. Every generation in this direct lineal consanguinity, constitutes a different degree, reckoning either upwards or downwards; the father of John Stiles is related to him in the first degree, and so likewise is his son; his grandsire and grandson, in the second; his great grandsire and great-grandson in the third. This is the only natural way of reckoning the degrees in the direct line; and therefore universally obtains, as well in the civil and canon, as in the common law.
The doctrine of lineal consanguinity is sufficiently plain and obvious; but it is, at the first view, astonishing to consider the number of lineal ancestors which every man has, within no very great number of degrees: and so many different bloods is a man said to contain in his veins, as he hath lineal ancestors. Of these he hath two in the first ascending degree; his own parents; he hath four in the second; the parents of his father and the parents of his mother: he hath eight in the third, the parents of his two grandfathers, and of his two grandmothers; and by the same rule of progression, he hath 128 in the seventh; 1024 in the tenth; and at the 20th degree, or at the distance of 20 generations, every man hath above a million of ancestors, as common arithmetic will demonstrate (a). This lineal consanguinity, we may observe, falls strictly within the definition of vinculum personarum ab eodem stipite descendentium; since lineal relations are such as descend one from the other, and both of course from the same common ancestors.
Collateral kindred answers to the same description: collateral
(a) This will seem surprising to those who are unacquainted with the increasing power of progressive numbers; but it is palpably evident from the following table of a geometrical progression, in which the first term is 2, and the denominator also 2; or, to speak more intelligibly, it is evident, for that each of us has two ancestors collateral relations agreeing with the lineal in this, that they descend from the same stock or ancestor; but differing in this, that they do not descend the one from the other. Collateral kinsmen, then, are such as lineally spring from one and the same ancestor, who is the stirps, or "root," the stipes, "trunk," or common stock, from whence these relations are branched out. As if John Stiles hath two sons, who have each a numerous issue; both these issues are lineally descended from John Stiles by their common ancestor, and they are collateral kinsmen to each other, because they are all descended from this common ancestor, and all have a portion of his blood in their veins, which denominates them consanguineous.
We must be careful to remember, that the very being of collateral consanguinity consists in this descent from one and the same common ancestor. Thus Titius and his brother are related; why? because both are derived from one father: Titius and his first cousin are related; why? because both descend from the same grandfather; and his second cousin's claim to consanguinity is this, that they are both derived from one and the same great-grandfather. In short, as many ancestors as a man has, so many common stocks he has from which collateral kinsmen may be derived. And as we are taught by holy writ, that there is one couple of common ancestors belonging to us all, from whom the whole race of mankind is descended, the obvious and undeniable consequence is, that all men are in some degree related to one another. For, indeed, if we only suppose each couple of our ancestors Consanguinity to have left, one with another, two children; and each of those children to have left, on an average, two more (and without such a supposition the human species must be daily diminishing); we shall find that all of us have now subsisting near 270 millions of kindred, in the 15th degree, at the same distance from the several common ancestors as we ourselves are; besides those that are one or two degrees nearer to our father from the common stock, who may amount to as many more (B). And if this calculation should appear incompatible with the number of inhabitants on the earth, it is because, by intermarriages among the several descendants from the same ancestor, a hundred or a thousand modes of consanguinity may be consolidated in one person; or he may be related to us a hundred or a thousand different ways.
The method of computing these degrees in the canon law, which we have adopted, is as follows. We begin at the common ancestor, and reckon downwards; and in whatsoever degree the two persons, or the most remote of them, is distant from the common ancestor, that is the degree in which they are related to each other. Thus, Titius and his brother are related in the first degree; for from the father to each of them is counted only one; Titius and his nephew are related in the second degree; for the nephew is two degrees removed from the common ancestor, viz. his own grandfather, the father of Titius: or (to give a more illustrious instance from the English annals)
King
cestors in the first degree, the number of whom is doubled at every remove; because each of our ancestors has also two immediate ancestors of his own.
| Degree | Number of Ancestors | |--------|---------------------| | 1 | 2 | | 2 | 4 | | 3 | 8 | | 4 | 16 | | 5 | 32 | | 6 | 64 | | 7 | 128 | | 8 | 256 | | 9 | 512 | | 10 | 1024 | | 11 | 2048 | | 12 | 4096 | | 13 | 8192 | | 14 | 16384 | | 15 | 32768 | | 16 | 65536 | | 17 | 131072 | | 18 | 262144 | | 19 | 524288 | | 20 | 1048576 |
A shorter way of finding the number of ancestors at any given degree, is by squaring the number of ancestors at half that number of degrees. Thus 16, the number of ancestors at 4 degrees, is the square of 4, the number of ancestors at 2; 256 is the square of 16; 65536 of 256; and the number of ancestors at 40 degrees would be the square of 1,048,576, or upwards of a million of millions.
(B) This will swell more considerably than the former calculation; for here, though the first term is but 1, the denominator is 4; that is, there is one kinsman (a brother) in the first degree, who makes, together with the propositus, the two descendants from the first couple of ancestors; and in every other degree, the number of kindred must be the quadruple of those in the degree which immediately precedes it. For since each couple of ancestors Consanguinity. King Henry VII., who slew Richard III. in the battle of Bosworth, was related to that prince in the fifth degree. Let the propositus, therefore, in the table of consanguinity, represent King Richard III. and the class marked E, King Henry VII. Now their common stock or ancestor was King Edward III., the abatus in the same table: from him to Edmund duke of York, the proavus, is one degree; to Richard earl of Cambridge, the avus, two; to Richard duke of York, the pater, three; to King Richard III., the propositus, four; and from King Edward III. to John of Gaunt (A) is one degree; to John earl of Somerset (B) two; to John duke of Somerset (C) three; to Margaret countess of Richmond (D) four; to King Henry VII. (E) five. Which last-mentioned prince, being the farthest removed from the common stock, gives the denomination to the degree of kindred in the canon and municipal law. Though according to the computation of the civilians (who count upwards from either of the persons related, to the common stock, and then downwards again to the other; reckoning a degree for each person both ascending and descending) these two princes were related in the ninth degree: for from King Richard III. to Richard duke of York is one degree; to Richard earl of Cambridge two; to Edmund duke of York three; to King Edward III. the common ancestor, four; to John of Gaunt five; to Constance John earl of Somerset six; to John duke of Somerset seven; to Margaret countess of Richmond eight; to Constance King Henry VII. nine. See the Table of Consanguinity (Plate CLXIV.), wherein all the degrees of collateral kindred to the propositus are computed, as far as the tenth of the civilians and the seventh of the canonists inclusive; the former being distinguished by the numeral letters, the latter by the common ciphers.
Consanguinity and Affinity, degrees of, forbidden in marriage. See Marriage and Law Index.
Consanguinity and Affinity, an objection against a judge or a witness. See Law Index.