A lineal descendant, in legal usage, is a blood relative in the direct line of

descent Descent may refer to: As a noun Genealogy and inheritance * Common descent, concept in evolutionary biology * Kinship, one of the major concepts of cultural anthropology **Pedigree chart or family tree ** Ancestry ** Lineal descendant **Heritag ...

– the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, etc. of a person. In a legal procedure sense, lineal descent refers to the acquisition of estate by inheritance by parent from grandparent and by child from parent, whereas collateral descent refers to the acquisition of estate or real property by inheritance by sibling from sibling, and cousin from cousin. Adopted children, for whom adoption statutes create the same rights of heirship as children of the body, come within the meaning of the term "lineal descendants," as used in a statute providing for the non-lapse of a devise where the devisee predeceases the testator but leaves lineal descendants. Among some Native American tribes in the United States, tribal enrollment can be determined by lineal descent, as opposed to a minimum

blood quantum Blood quantum laws or Indian blood laws are laws in the United States that define Native American status by fractions of Native American ancestry. These laws were enacted by the federal government and state governments as a way to estab ...

. Lineal descent means that anyone directly descended from original tribal enrollees could be eligible for tribal enrollment, regardless of how much native blood they have. The antonym of ''descendant'' is '' antecedent''.

Collateral descendant

collateral descendant A lineal descendant, in legal usage, is a blood relative in the direct line of descent – the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, etc. of a person. In a legal procedure sense, lineal descent refers to the acquisition of estate by i ...

is a legal term for a relative descended from a

sibling A sibling is a relative that shares at least one parent with the subject. A male sibling is a brother and a female sibling is a sister. A person with no siblings is an only child. While some circumstances can cause siblings to be raised separa ...

of an ancestor, and thus a

niece In the lineal kinship system used in the English-speaking world, a niece or nephew is a child of the subject's sibling or sibling-in-law. The converse relationship, the relationship from the niece or nephew's perspective, is that of an ...

, nephew, or

cousin Most generally, in the lineal kinship system used in the English-speaking world, a cousin is a type of familial relationship in which two relatives are two or more familial generations away from their most recent common ancestor. Commonly, ...

References

{{law-stub Kinship and descent Legal terminology Property law