Hi Shirley, It depends somewhat on what type of document that is being considered. These terms are most often found in the estate inventories, where the inventory was approved by the "next of kin," (NOK) or "kin." Law dictionaries usually define "next of kin" as "the closest relative" or "a relative entitled to the estate of a deceased person." In the real world, for signing MD inventories, I would define it as the "closest relative of adult age available and handy to sign the inventory," not necessarily the "closest relative" and certainly not necessarily a person entitiled to a share of the estate. In practical terms, I find perhaps some of the more common NOK on inventories were either brothers, sisters, or brothers-in-law of the deceased. Keep in mind the different types of brothers-in-law. If the deceased was a male, the brother-in-law may have been a brother of the widow, [thus blood related to the deceased's children]; or the husband of a sister to the widow [thus no blood relation to the deceased or his children]. I would think parents of the deceased and adult children of the deceased were the second most common NOK. Next are more distant NOK: nephew, uncle, cousin, spouses of the same and maybe even more distant "relation." It would be nice if there were some hard and fast rule as to who the NOK were on signing inventories. Unfortunately, in the real world of MD probate there wasn't, and only seldomly is the relation given on the inventory. Now, if you find the term used in relation to a probate, where someone inherited from an intestate estate, you are talking of a more legal description. There were legal statutes regarding who would inherit. For a better discussion of laws regarding descent see: http://www.mdarchives.state.md.us/msa/refserv/html/inherit.html Rick Saunders http://genealogypro.com/fsaunders.html http://pweb.netcom.com/~fzsaund/0.html