Nephews and Great Nephews in wills before 1800

[Mercian7]

Hi,

I am trying to get my head round the apparent illogic of a will I have dated 1795. It is incredibly detailed which should be wonderful but there seems to be a problem. The testator mentions quite a few nephews but as I know about when these are baptised it seems apparent that their father could not be the testator's brother.

I know kinship in old wills can be subjective but have any of you come across instances when someone called a nephew has turned out to be a great nephew instead?

Thanks
John

[KGarrad]

Relationship descriptions weren't specific back then.
Back in my childhood, there were people i called Aunty and Uncle who weren't blood relations at all!
Going back a century or more, a relation of mine (John Constable) has letters published referring to his Garrad cousins - they were 2nd or 3rd cousins, maybe once or twice removed!

[Annie65115]

Yes, I think that I've ssen wills where someone is described as a nephew when they could only have been a great nephew.

Similarly, "cousin" could be considerably more flexible that we might expect.

"Brothers" and "sisters" could be inlaws, or even the siblings of inlaws.

Daughter in law could be stepdaughter  (ditto son)

etc etc!

[goldie61]

A similar issue here seemingly - also posted yesterday
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=880361.0;topicseen

'Nephew' could also be grandson according to this.

"It turns out that nephew was regularly used for grandson at this time.

Search for "nephew archaic".

(Thanks horselydown 86)