Site Glossary
This glossary is a comprehensive collection of terms compiled during the research phase of this project. This collection includes familiar terms as well as specialized vocabulary. While many may be familiar, we have included all terms encountered to ensure clarity and provide definitions for any specialized or uncommon vocabulary.
Ancestral Lines
Direct blood connection from you backward in time. The specific line of descent from one ancestor to another (e.g., your maternal grandmother’s line, or your paternal grandfather’s line). This is the most popular term in the context of family history and DNA testing.
Example: “I’m tracing my ancestral line back to my 5th great-grandparents.”
- Lineage: The direct line of descent from an ancestor. Often implies a direct connection that can be traced.
- Patrilineal Line: The direct line through fathers and sons (your father, his father, his father, etc.). Important for Y-DNA.
- Matrilineal Line: The direct line through mothers and daughters (your mother, her mother, her mother, etc.). Important for mitochondrial DNA.
- Collateral Line: The “side branches” of your family—your ancestors’ siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins.|
Apical Ancestor
A more technical term referring to the single ancestor from whom a specific group (like a lineage or clan) is descended.
Collateral Relatives
Family members who share a common ancestor but are not in a direct line of descent, such as siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins.
Consanguinity
Consanguinity (from Latin consanguinitas ‘blood relationship’) is the characteristic of having a kinship with a relative who is descended from a common ancestor.
Ego
This term is often used in anthropology or kinship studies to simply mean “I” or “Self,” representing the central individual from whom all relationships are mapped.
Founder
Often used for the earliest known person of a specific surname or the one who founded a family line in a new country or region.
Genealogical Lines
The overall process and connection of family relationships proven through research.
Refers to the whole structure of the family tree and the work of proving the relationships. It’s often used more formally or interchangeably with “ancestral line.”
Example: “The records confirm the connection in that genealogical line.“
Genealogical Numbering Systems
Several genealogical numbering systems have been widely adopted for presenting family trees and pedigree charts in text format.
Genetic Adam & Eve
In human genetics, the Mitochondrial Eve (more technically known as the Mitochondrial-Most Recent Common Ancestor, shortened to mt-Eve or mt-MRCA) is the matrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all living humans. In other words, she is defined as the most recent woman from whom all living humans descend in an unbroken line purely through their mothers and through the mothers of those mothers, back until all lines converge on one woman.
In human genetics, the Y-chromosomal Adam (more technically known as the Y-chromosomal most recent common ancestor, shortened to Y-MRCA), is the patrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA) from whom all currently living humans are descended. He is the most recent male from whom all living humans are descended through an unbroken line of their male ancestors. The term Y-MRCA reflects the fact that the Y chromosomes of all currently living human males are directly derived from the Y chromosome of this remote ancestor.
Generational Lines
The passage of time from one stage of the family to the next. Emphasizes the step-by-step nature of the family history, one generation at a time. It’s used less often to describe a specific line and more to describe the depth of the tree.
Example: “I’ve been able to prove five generational lines of my family.”
Kinship Types
Kinship is the web of social relationships that form an important part of the lives of all humans in all societies, although its exact meanings even within this discipline are often debated. Anthropologist Robin Fox says that the study of kinship is the study of what humans do with these basic facts of life – mating, gestation, parenthood, socialization, siblingship etc. Human society is unique, he argues, in that we are “working with the same raw material as exists in the animal world, but [we] can conceptualize and categorize it to serve social ends.” These social ends include the socialization of children and the formation of basic economic, political and religious groups. Wiki Link
There are several different types of kinships:
⯁ Ambilineality
A form of kinship affiliation of cognatic descent that relies on self-defined affiliation within a given social system, meaning individuals have the choice to be affiliated with their mother’s or father’s group. Common features of societies that practice ambilineality are a shared set of land, communal responsibilities, and collective ownership of some segments of wealth and debt in their societies. This system of descent is distinct from more common genealogical structures in that rather than determining affiliation and descent using the standard determinants of biological and genealogical relation, it instead relies heavily on voluntary affiliation with one’s group, oftentimes being determined by factors including residence.
⯁ Bilateral Kinship/Descent
Bilateral descent is a system of family lineage in which the relatives on the mother’s side and father’s side are equally important for emotional ties or for transfer of property or wealth. It is a family arrangement where descent and inheritance are passed equally through both parents. Families who use this system trace descent through both parents simultaneously and recognize multiple ancestors, but unlike with cognatic descent it is not used to form descent groups.
⯁ Cognatic kinship
Cognatic kinship is a mode of descent calculated from an ancestor counted through any combination of male and female links, or a system of bilateral kinship where relations are traced through both a father and mother. Such relatives may be known as cognates.
⯁ Matrilineality (Matrilineage)
Also known as Matriliny. The tracing of kinship through the female line.
⯁ Patrilineality (Patrilineage)
Also known as the male line, the spear side or agnatic kinship, is a common kinship system in which an individual’s family membership derives from and is recorded through their father’s lineage.
Lineal Relatives:
Family Memembers who are direct ancestors or descendants (e.g., a parent, grandparent, or child). The term is significant in legal contexts like inheritance and in genealogical research to trace family history.
Lineage
Lineage is a unilineal descent group that traces its ancestry to a demonstrably shared ancestor, known as the apical ancestor. Lineages are formed through relationships traced either exclusively through the maternal line (matrilineage), paternal line (patrilineage), or some combination of both (ambilineal)
Migration
Migration is the broader term for any movement of people away from their usual residence, whether internationally or within a country. Immigration and emigration are specific types of international migration.
Emigration
The act of leaving one’s country or region to settle in another. The act of departing from a home country. The person moving from Mexico to the United States is an emigrant from Mexico.
Immigration
The process of entering and settling in a country of which one is not a native. The act of arriving in a new country. A person moving from Mexico to the United States for work is an immigrant to the U.S.
Proband
A common term used in genetics and genealogy. It means the “person being studied” or the “subject of inquiry.”
Progenitor
The person or thing from which others are descended or originate. Genealogy (commonly known as family history) understands a progenitor to be the earliest recorded ancestor of a consanguineous family group of descendants.
Progenitrix
Families and peoples with a matrilinear history trace themselves back to an original female progenitrix. Matrilinear rules of descent are found in about 200 of the 1300 known indigenous peoples and ethnic groups worldwide.
Progeny
In genealogy, “progeny” refers to a person’s lineal descendants or offspring, encompassing all their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and so on, tracing down the family line.