Kinship Interview Essay

For this project the goal was to interview an individual and learn about their unique kinship system. This would include not just relations but also the social obligations and bonds that come with those familial relationships. For this I spoke with a participant who will be called “Ben” throughout the paper to protect his identity. I asked Ben about his family tree, up to four generations, from his grandparents to his nieces and nephews. I learned about settlement patterns and the social hierarchy within his family as well as how members of his family interact with one another. From this I learned a general impression of the nature of his kinship and family and how he defines his own familial structuring. Ben has a large extended family,

He loves his family and treats them with respect, he understands the expectations, but he feels no obligation to follow in his father’s or mother’s footsteps for his career nor does he feel an obligation to live near to them once he graduates. This is not because they don’t push these obligations on him although. Most of his mother’s side of the family were educated as engineers and they pushed for him to become one as well when he started school. Although he did pursue a major in mechanical engineering he ultimately abandoned that career path in favor for one in law enforcement, the first of his family to do so and in stark contrast to his maternal grandfather’s own past as a member of the Scottish Mob. To go out on an interesting tangent about his grandfather, he fled from Scotland sometime in the 50’s and assumed a new name before marrying Ben’s grandmother, the family does not know his original name merely that he came here for fear of being arrested. Although this sounds fictionalized when his grandfather passed away he left everything he owned to his wife, however since he didn’t trust paper trails all his assets were in gold and diamonds hidden in the walls of his house. His grandfather started the closest thing to a “family business”, an electrical shop that is today run by one of Ben’s mother’s brothers. Although it is a family business Ben never felt any

His patrilineage is entirely located within, or very close to, the small town of Monroe, Ga. Since them coming to America his patrilineage has stuck very close together geographically never straying far from the town where the patriarch or matriarch lives. His father’s side of the family first landed in Savannah, Ga in 1731. They eventually migrated to Monroe from Hull, Ga after a decision made by the matriarch and patriarch to move there. Once the heads of the family made this decision the rest of the family moved as well to keep the family together. This shows how closely his patrilineage settle to each other and how important it is to them to have the family close together. His matrilineage has a completely opposite settlement pattern. The members of the matrilineage live spread out across the country away from one another. The members of this side of the family tend to live in a solitary manner with very little interaction with each other except for holidays. Ben’s brother at this time lives in Kiev, Ukraine however this is likely temporary as he is currently working for the Peace Corps. Ben has no intention to stay in Monroe after he has graduated from college, he is making plans to move to Marietta where he is applying for work with their police department. So, while close settlement is very important to the patrilineage it is not so with the matrilineage and the youngest generation of the family feels no pressure