Kinship: It's All Relative. Second Edition, Enlarged; by Jackie Smith Arnold; xii + 144 pp; Paper; 5x8.5, Published: 2012; ISBN: 9780806319537; Item # GPC178

We pursue it as a hobby and search for it in the most out-of-the-way places, yet few of us actually know very much about kinship. For instance, do you know the degree of blood relationship between yourself and your first cousins? Between third cousins and second cousins once removed? Do you know anything at all about the removes? Do you understand the difference between a great-aunt and a grand-aunt? Or between a cousin-german and a cater cousin? And what about double first cousins? If you’re a little vague about any of this, then this book is for you. It explains everything there is to know about kinship: about agnate and cognate kinship, collateral and fictive kinship, the kinship connection of orphans, foundlings, foster children, and adopted children. Everything!

The expanded second edition of Kinship already featured new chapters on the subjects of marriage, names, and wills, as well as an expanded treatment of subjects such as degrees of consanguinity and ways to calculate blood relationships; and it had a new glossary, bibliography, and an index.

Now we have a new Enlarged Edition with a unique chapter on the role of same-sex marriage as it impacts genealogy and family history, placing same-sex marriage in the context of history, law, religion, and the changing culture of the modern family. This is a timely and fascinating topic in itself, stirring passions on all sides by redefining the concept of family as we know it. And as public opinion hardens or changes, so, too, does the law, and perhaps the most impressive part of this new chapter is the state-by-state breakdown of current law pertaining to same-sex marriage. Now you can tell in an instant what the laws are in all fifty states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, with the understanding that such laws are constantly evolving.

EDITORIAL REVIEWS OF AN EARLIER EDITION

"The book is well-organized. The text is chatty, appealing to beginners, and even flippant." - THE AMERICAN GENEALOGIST, Vol. 69, No. 4 (October 1994), pp. 255-256.

"...one of the best sources for explaining all of the various familial and in-law relationships, degrees of consanguinity (blood relationships), and all that stuff about cousins (first cousins share a grandparent, second cousins share a great grandparent, etc.), once removed or otherwise. Kinship is just right for library reference shelves." - LIBRARY JOURNAL (June 15, 1990).