Charting Relationships
August 20, 2014 § 4 Comments
It can be devilishly difficult to figure out relationships among people in your head, especially when your client says something like, “She was my double third cousin on my momma’s side, and she married my husband’s great-uncle’s niece after her first husband died.”
But it has to be done in estate work, property (especially partition), wrongful death, and in any case where you have to compute relationships within the third degree.
One super tool is the Nolan Chart of Relationships and Degrees of Kindred, which is reproduced below:
You can access a large-size .jpg file by clicking this link.
You will also find it at 51 So.2d 542.
I’ve posted about the Nolan Chart here before.
The Better Chancery Practice Blog 
I do not have permission to click on the jpg link, it tells me.
Thanks for letting me know. I accessed it through this site: http://paws.kettering.edu//~ellis/mycourse/soc336/family.htm. You will have to scroll down the page to find the link to it.
Never thought it would be used after Shirley Norwood’s class, but I actually had to hunt that chart down and use it recently. As a funny for the day, years back I was in court and the witness said of the defendant, “He’s my first cousin but he’s also my brother.” The bad part of it is that he was telling the truth, but the worst part of it was that I knew the family and understood what he meant!
“He’s my first cousin but he’s also my brother.”
Yikes.