Consanguinity

(-sun-gwin'e-te.) (From L. consanguine us, allied in blood.) (Law.) The relationship which subsists between persons who are sprung from the same stock or common ancestor, in distinction from affinity, or relation by marriage. It is either lineal, between persons of whom one is descended in a direct line from the other (son, father, grandfather, .), or collateral, between such as lineally descend from the same ancestor (brothers, cousins, .). In lineal consanguinity, the father is related in the first degree to the son, the grandfather in the second, and so forth. In collateral, the computation is by beginning at the common ancestor and reckoning downward to the more remote of the persons compared; thus brothers are kindred in the first degree; uncle and nephew, or first cousins, in the second degree, and so on. [s. 220]