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Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Edition (1856)

GENEALOGY. The summary history or table of a house or family, showing how
the persons there named are connected together.
2. It is founded on the idea of a lineage or family. Persons descended
from the common father constitute a family. Under the idea of degrees is
noted the nearness or remoteness, of relationship, in which one person
stands with respect to another. A series of several persons, descended from
a common progenitor, is called a line. (q. v.) Children stand to each other
in the relation either of full blood or half blood, according as they are
descended from the same parents, or have only one parent in common. For
illustrating descent and relationship, genealogical tables are constructed,
the order of which depends on the end in view. In tables, the object of
which is to show all the individuals embraced in a family, it is usual to
begin with the oldest progenitor, and to put all the persons of the male or
female sex in descending, and then in collateral lines. Other tables exhibit
the ancestors of a particular person in ascending lines both on the father's
and mother's side. In this way 4, 8, 16, 32- &c. ancestors are exhibited,
doubling at every degree. Some tables are constructed in the form of a tree,
after the. model of canonical law, (arbor consanguinitatis,) in which the
progenitor is placed beneath, as if for the root or stem. Vide Branch; Line.