<P> For the purposes of next of kin, adopted children are treated as blood relatives . However, relatives by marriage are never considered next of kin . </P> <P> "American statutes typically provide that, in absence of issue and subject to the share of a surviving spouse, intestate property passes to the parents or to the surviving parent of the decedent". Under the civil law system of computation and its various modified forms that are widely adopted by statute in the United States, "a claimant's degree of kinship is the total of (1) the number of the steps, counting one from each generation, from the decedent up to the nearest common ancestor of the decedent and the claimant, and (2) the number of steps from the common ancestor down to the claimant ." "The claimant having the lowest degree count (i.e., the nearest or next of kin) is entitled to the property ." "If there are two or more claimants who stand in equal degree of kinship to the decedent, they share per capita ." </P> <P> Thus, the following conditions determine the usual order of precedence: </P> <Ul> <Li> In the absence of issue (i.e., children, grandchildren, and on down the line) and in absence of your parents and their issue and grandparents and of their issue (termed "inner circle" and are usually specifically mentioned in a statute), relatives who are closer in "degree" to the person in question always take precedence . For the purposes of this point, "To determine any person's degree of relation to the decedent, begin with the decedent and follow the line that connects the decedent with the other person . Each person that must be passed through before reaching the final person adds one degree to the total, including the final person ." </Li> <Li> "Of multiple relations with the same degree, those connecting through a nearer ancestor are more closely related to the decedent ." </Li> </Ul>

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