Step relationships

[LizzieL]

My brother has just emailed me to tell me that our step-uncle had passed away a few days ago. I wondered who on earth he was talking about, since we have / had neither a step mother or a step father and I thought a step uncle was the brother of a step parent.
But his reasoning is that the gentleman who has recently passed was the step father of our first cousins (our mother's sister's second husband) so is our step uncle. But I don't see that his relationship to us was any different from our aunt's first husband was to us. He is just as much an uncle in law.
I know the term son-in-law used to be used for what we now call step son, but would a son / daughter refer to their mother's husband as father in law rather than step father. And did the same interchangeabilty of "step" and "in law" apply to uncles?
I wish my brother had said C... just called to tell me D... has passed away, I would have known who he meant immediately and wouldn't have had to tax my brain so much!

[iluleah]

You are correct it is Uncle ( in law) and if she had married 20 different men, to you they would ( while married to her) be uncles ( in law)