progression, he hath an hundred and twenty-eight in the seventh; a thousand and twenty-four in the tenth; and at the twentieth degree, or the distance of twenty generations, every man hath above a million of ancestors, as common arithmetic will demonstrate (i). This lineal consanguinity, we may observe, falls strictly within the definition of vin[ *204] culum *personarum ab eodem stipite descendentium; since lineal relations are such as descend one from the other, and both of course from the same common ancestor. consists in the descent from one sanguinity also common ances tor. Collateral kindred answers to the same description: col- of collateral lateral relations agreeing with the lineal in this, that they kindred. descend from the same stock or ancestor; but differing in this, that they do not descend one from the other. Collateral kinsmen are such then 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 as 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 [ *205 ] consanguineos. We must be careful to remember, that the very being of Collateral concollateral 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 both are 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 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 each other. For indeed, if we only suppose each couple of our ancestors to have left, one with another, two children; and each of those children on an average to have left 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 two hundred and seventy millions of kindred in the fifteenth degree, at the same distance from the several common ancestors as ourselves are; besides those that are The method of one or two descents nearer to or farther from the common stock, who may amount to as many more (k). 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 (k) This will swell more considerably than the former calculation; for here, though the first term is but one, the denominator is four: 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 has two descendants, who increase in a duplicate ratio, it will follow that the ratio, in which all the descendants increase downwards, must be double to that in which the ancestors increase upwards: but we have seen that the ancestors increase upwards in a duplicate ratio : therefore the descendants must increase downwards in a double duplicate, that is, in a quadruple ratioţ. + Mr. Christian observes, "that the learned judge's reasoning is just and correct; and that the collateral relations are quadrupled in each generation may be thus demonstrated:-As we are supposed, upon an average, to have one brother or sister, the two children by the father's brother or sister will make two cousins, and the mother's brother or sister will produce two more, in all, four. For the same reason, my father and mother must each have had four cousins, and their children are my second cousins; so I have eight second cousins by my father, and eight by my mother; together, sixteen. And thus again, I shall have 32 third-cousins on my father's side, and 32 on my mother's; in all, 64. Hence it follows that each preceding number in the series must be multiplied by twice two, or four. This immense increase of the numbers depends upon the supposition that no one marries a relation; but to avoid such a connexion it will very soon be necessary to leave the kingdom. How these two tables of consanguinity may be reduced by the intermarriage of relations, will appear from the following simple case: If two men and two women were put upon an uninhabited island, and became two married couple, if they had only two children each, a male and female, who respectively intermarried, and in like manner produced two children, who are thus continued ad infinitum; it is clear, that there would never be more than four persons in each generation; and if the parents lived to see their great grandchildren, the whole number would never be more than sixteen; and thus sanguinity. [ *207 ] law (), which our law has adopted (m) (5), is as follows: computing the We begin at the common ancestor, and reckon downwards; degrees of conand 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 our English annals), king Henry the seventh, who slew Richard the third in the battle of Bosworth, was related to that prince in the fifth (1) Decretal. 4. 14. 3 & 9. (m) Co. Litt. 23. (5) As to the descent of real estates, this is the method of computation: but see the next note. the families might be perpetuated with- This calculation may also be formed by Collateral Degrees. Number of Kindred. ber of ancestors, at any given degree; which will furnish us with the number degree. Let the propositus therefore in the table of consanguinity represent king Richard the third, and the class marked (e) king Henry the seventh. Now their common stock or ancestor was king Edward the third, the abavus in the same table: from him to Edmond 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 the third, the propositus, four; and from king Edward the third to John of Gant (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 the seventh (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 (6), (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 the third to Richard duke of York is one degree; to (6) The mode of calculating degrees of proximity in the collateral line, for the purpose of determining what parties are entitled, under the statute of distributions, (22 & 23 Car. 2, c. 10), to shares of the personal estate of an intestate, is not the mode of the canonists adopted by the common law in the descent of real estates; (Cowper v. Cowper, 2 P. Wms. 735); but (with one qualification noticed infra,) conforms to that of the civilians, as stated in the text; or, in other words, the rule is, to take the sum of the degrees, in both lines, to the common ancestor. (Mentney v. Petty, Prec. in Cha. 593). And see post, chap. 32, p. 504, 515). The instance of exception noticed above, is this. According to the civil law, the brother and the grandmother of an intestate stand in equal degrees of affinity to him; and the grandmother, as being in the lineal ascending line, was, by that law, preferred to the brother or any other in the collateral line: but, according to the construction put by our courts upon the statute of distributions, (in this instance conforming to the canon law), the brother, as making title immediately from his deceased brother, is preferred to the grandmother, who could only claim mediately through the father of the deceased. (Earl of Winchelsea v. Norcliff, 2 Freem. 95. Davis v. Blackborough, 1 P. Wms. 45. Evelyn v. Evelyn, Ambl. 191. Collingwood v. Pace, 1 Ventr. 423). |