DESCENT

Hereditary succe ion. Succe ion to the 'ownership of an estate by inheritance, or by any act of law, as dist in-,guished from "purchase." Title by descent is the title by which one person, upon the death of another, acquires the real estate of the latter as his heir at law. 2 Bl. Comm. 201; Com. Dig. "Descent," A; Adams v. Akerlund, 168 Ill. 632, 48 N. E. 454; Starr Y. E Hamilton, 22 Fed. Oas. 1,107; In re Donahue's IDstate, 36 Cal. 332; Shippen v. Izard, 1 Serg. & R. (Pa.) 224; Brower v. Hunt, 18 Ohio St. 338; Allen v. Bland, 134 Ind. 78,. 33 N. El. 774. Cla iftcation. Descents are of two sorts, f lineal and ool/.ateral. Lineal descent is descent in a direct or right line, as from father or grandfather to son or grandson. Collateral descent is descent in a -collateral or oblique line, that is, up to the common ancestor and then down from him, as from brother to brother, or 6 between cousins. Levy v. McCartee, 6 Pet. 112, 8 L. Eld. 334., They are also distinguished into mediate and immeffiate descents. But these terms are used in different senses. A descent may be said to be a mediate or immediate descent of the estate or right; or it may be said to be mediate or immediate, in regard to the H mediatene or immediatene of the pedigree or · consanguinity. Thus, a descent from the grandfather, who dies in po e ion, to the grandchild, the father being then dead, or from the uncle to the nephew, the brother being dead, is, in the former sense, in law, immediate descent, although the one is collateral and the other hneal; for I the heir is in the per, and not in the per and cui. On the other hand, with reference to the line of pedigree or.consanguinity, a descent is often said to be immediate, when the ancestor from whom the party derives his blood is immediate, and without' any intervening link or degrees; and mediate, when the kindred is de- ·J rived from him mediante altero, another ancestor intervening between them. Thus a descent in lineals from father to son is in this sense immediate; but a descent from grandfather to grandson, the father being dead, or from uncle to nephew, the brother being dead: is deemed mediate; the father and the brother being, in K these latter cases, the mediium deferens, as it is called, of the descent or consanguinity. Levy v. McCartee, 6 Pet. 112, 8 L. Ed. 334; Furenes v. Mic kelson, 86 Iowa, 508, 53 N. W. 416; Garner v. Wood, 71 Md. 37, 17 Atl. 1031. Descent was denoted, in the Roman law, by the term "succe io," which is also' used L by Bracton, and from which has been derived 'the succe fon or the Scotch and French jurisprudence. -Descent cast, The devolving of realty upon the heir on the death of hla ancestor intes- M tate. [s. 365]