Legal Definitions - Parentelic System

The Parentelic System is a method used in some legal jurisdictions to determine who inherits a deceased person's property when they die without a valid will (a situation known as dying intestate). After considering immediate family members like a spouse, children, parents, and then siblings, nieces, and nephews, this system extends the search for heirs.

It does so by systematically tracing back through the deceased person's ancestors (such as grandparents or great-grandparents) and then identifying all living descendants from those ancestral lines. Essentially, it defines a "parentela" as a group of relatives descended from a common ancestor, and it prioritizes these groups to find the closest living heirs.

• Example 1: Tracing through Grandparents

  Imagine Sarah dies unmarried, without children, and both her parents and siblings have passed away. She has no nieces or nephews. To find Sarah's heirs, the parentelic system would first look to her grandparents. If her grandparents are also deceased, the system would then identify and prioritize the living descendants of those grandparents. This could mean her aunts, uncles, or first cousins would be considered as potential heirs, as they are descendants of Sarah's grandparents.

  This illustrates how the system moves up to an ancestral generation (grandparents) and then down through their offspring to find living relatives who can inherit when closer family members are absent.

• Example 2: Identifying Distant Cousins

  Consider John, an elderly widower, who dies intestate with no children, parents, siblings, nieces, or nephews. His closest living relatives are a great-aunt (his grandfather's sister) and several second cousins (descendants of his great-grandparents). The parentelic system would systematically trace back through John's family tree. It would identify his great-grandparents as an ancestral line. Then, it would look for all living descendants of those great-grandparents. In this case, both the great-aunt and the second cousins would be identified as belonging to this broader ancestral group. The system would then apply specific rules to determine which of these individuals, if any, are the legal heirs based on their proximity within that parentela.

  This demonstrates the system's ability to reach more distant relatives by identifying a common ancestor (great-grandparents) and then examining all their living descendants to find the appropriate heirs.