Chart your family in a kinship diagram of your own design that includes as many generations as possible (include your mother's and your father's ancestral line). Be sure to include relations by marriage (affines) and consaguines (relations by birth). You may use kinship symbols and abbreviations as used in the text or create your own (so long as you provide a detailed chart to explain what your symbols and abbreviations mean). Remember that you will need symbols for a range of roles such as mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, cousin; a way to show gender; a way to show which groups are closer to you (as Ego); ways to show connections between individuals (children, married partners); a way to show if people are divorced; and a way to show if people have died. There are (as we have seen) many potential ways of figuring kinship as well as many types of family. For example, this assignment need not be restricted to so-called blood relatives; you may be adopted or have people who you consider like family (people whom anthropologists sometimes call "fictive kin"). If necessary, describe remarriages, half-siblings, or other details in accompanying notes. After completing and carefully labeling your kinship diagram, answer the questions below.
- What lineage system does your diagrammed family use?
- To which relatives are you closest? Why?
- Identify your parallel and cross cousins on the diagram.
- What categories of relatives can you identify in your diagram?
- Does your reckoning of kinship appear consistent with that expected for most people in North America? Why or why not?
- How did you gather the necessary information on your family? Were there any surprises?
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