In re the Estate of Monaghan

Layton, J.:

In the absence of a wife, issue, parent, brother, sister or issue of brother or sister, Title 12 Del. C. § 512(5) provides that the intestate’s personal estate should be distributed “to the next of kin of the intestate, in equal degree, and the lawful issue of such kin as shall have died before the intestate.” The three claimants are next of kin in equal degree.

The civil law must be used in determining degrees of consanguinity. Title 12 Del. C. § 511, § 501. This requires counting back to the nearest common ancestor and, from such ancestor, down to the particular relative in…