As a lawyer, I am going to side with Richard and the other Joan. The documents we are talking about are legal documents: wills and other probate records, marriage consents filed with the state, and so on. For these documents one must apply the legal definition. The be all and end all of legal definitions is Black's Law Dictionary. This was quoted in full in a previous post. Basically it says intermarriage is equal to our modern definition of marriage without any subplots. If the word is used in a lay or social sense then it may take on the other connotations given in the various other posts. Joan Best "Joan Best" <joanbest1@earthlink.net>