CONSANGUINITY (Lat. consanguis, blood together).
The relation subsisting among all the dif ferent persons descending from the same stock or common ancestor.
Collateral consanguinity is the relation subsisting among persons who descend from the same common ancestor, but not from each other. It is essential, to constitute this relation, that they spring from the same common root or stock, but in different branches.
Lineal consanguinity is that relation'which exists among persons where one is descended from the 'other, as between the son and the father, or the grandfather, and so upwards in a direct ascending line ; and between the father and the son, or the grandson, and so downwards in a direct descending line.
2. In computing the degree of lineal con sanguinity existing between two persons, every generation in the direct course of rela tionship between the two parties makes a de gree; and the rule is the same by the canon, civil, and common law.
The mode of computing degrees of col lateral consanguinity at the common and by the canon law is to discover the common an cestor, to begin with him to reckon down wards, and the degree the two persons, or the more remote of them, is distant from the ancestor, is the degree of kindred sub sisting between them. For instance, two brothers are related to each other in the first degree, because from the father to each of them is one degree. An uncle and a nephew are related to each other in the second degree, because the nephew is two degrees distant from the common ancestor ; and the rule of computation is extended to the remotest de grees of collateral relationship.
The method of computing by the civil law is to begin at either of the persons in ques tion; and count up to the common• ancestor, and then downwards to the other person, calling it a for each person, both ascending and descending, and the degrees they stand from each other is the degree in which they stand related. Thus, from a ne phew to his father is one degree; to the grand father, two degrees; and then to the uncle, three; which points out the relationship.
3. The preceding table, in which the Ro man numeral letters express the degrees by the civil law, and those in Arabic figures at the bottom, those by the common law, will fully illustrate the subject.
4. The mode of the oivil law is preferable, for it points out the actual degree of kindred in all cases; by the mode adopted by the common law, different relations may stand in the same degree. The uncle and nephew stand related in the degree by the common law, and so are two first cousins, or •two sons• of two brothers ; but by the civil law the uncle and nephew are in the third degree, and the cousins are in the fourth. The mode of computation, however, is imma terial; for both will establish the same per son to be the heir. 2 Blackstone, Comm. 202.