Brommer/ANTH& 206
Kinship Chart
Kinship Charts are helpful to anthropologists looking at social structure and social
organization since kinship refers to relationships and helps us understand how people classify
people and obligations and social patterns, including inheritance, rituals, property ownership,
leadership, marriage rules, belonging of children, residence patterns.
Horizontal – bring people together, solidify through marriage, siblings
Vertical – bring people together, solidify through generations
1)
Create your own kinship chart. Include a minimum of 4 generations, including every
relative you know of and identifying yourself as EGO and using the format and symbols
from the Kinships Chart document in the Week 7 Module. Regarding kinship charts,
the reader should be able to read your chart and identify EGO’s (your) relationships.
See second page for kinship chart.
NOTE: You may have to hand-draw your kinship diagram and scan it in or take a photo
of it and unload it.
2)
Referring to kin on your kinship chart (mark the symbols of
and
with
numbers or letters, identify kin terms, inheritance patterns, and residence patterns (in
terms of living in the same area or not). You can identify your kin by labeling with
letters or numbers.
a.
After doing this, what patterns of kinship roles, responsibilities, and closeness
can you identify? You must use terms from the PowerPoint.
My kinship chart has bilateral descent groups with both my mother and fathers sides.
Every marriage in my kinship tree is an endogamy because they were both from the
same social class and ethnic background. Every family here is also a nuclear family with
the husband and wife living with their kids until they move out. For relationships, all are
monogamy with the married man being married to one wife. My fathers family is here
on the west coast around the Seattle area while my moms family is back on the east
coast in the Philadelphia area. My mom was the only one to move away from the east
coast.
3)
Describe a holiday or other event that highlights some kinship relations and roles,
referring to kin on your kinship chart and kinship terms in the PowerPoint.
