Tamil Kinship Terms Guide: Relationship Mapping

Tamil ancestry research is relationship-heavy: the same term can mean different relationships depending on speaker, generation, and maternal vs paternal side. Misreading a kinship term can create wrong parent links.

Start with the hub guide: Tamil Ancestry.

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Why kinship terms are tricky in genealogy

Tamil terms can encode:

• elder/younger ordering
• maternal/paternal side
• respect and social context
• household roles rather than strict biological links

Rule: treat kinship terms as clues; confirm via records and relationships.

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High-value distinctions to capture

1) Maternal vs paternal side

If the term implies a specific side, store it explicitly:

• “maternal uncle” vs “paternal uncle”

2) Elder vs younger

Age ordering can resolve ambiguity and same-name collisions.

3) Relationship-by-marriage

Some terms refer to in-law roles; never assume biological linkage.

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Disambiguation method (use this every time)

Step 1 — Identify the speaker

Who said “mama/athai/anna”? The term is defined relative to the speaker.

Step 2 — Identify the reference person

Is the term used relative to:

• the speaker’s parent?
• the spouse?
• a household elder?

Step 3 — Test against the timeline

Does the age ordering and generation make sense?

Step 4 — Confirm using one evidence anchor

Use at least one:

• spouse/parent name in a document
• household clustering
• wedding invitation relationship listing
• consistent address network

If you cannot confirm, store as “possible relationship” only.

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How to store kinship terms safely (data model guidance)

For each relationship claim:

• term as spoken (raw)
• inferred relationship type (normalized)
• side: maternal/paternal/unknown
• confidence: confirmed/probable/possible
• evidence note

This prevents “hard commits” from conversational terms.

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Common mistakes

• Treating conversational terms as strict biological relationships
• Ignoring the speaker perspective
• Merging people based on a term alone

Use the merge guide when uncertain: Avoid Duplicate Ancestors.

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Next steps

• If initials complicate relationship mapping: Tamil Initials Decoder
• To anchor relationships to places: Find Ancestral Village
• Return to hub workflow: Tamil Ancestry

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