La mesure du lien familial : développement et diversification d’un champ de recherches

During the last decades, family ties have been the object of much research conducted by historical demographers and historians of the family. This is mostly due to two factors. First, the great diversity of relations existing both within and on the border of the family has been fully accounted for. Secondly, a reflection has started on the complexities and the implications of the measurement of family ties. This article provides an overview of these methodological and analytical developments. It covers, first of all, the primordial relation – the marriage alliance. Subsequently, it analyzes broader concept of family and kinship, including actors such as grandparents, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts. Then, it focuses on the position of kinship within the broader familial and social network (taking into account how different social ties were used, and the sources available to study such ties). The picture is completed by an overview of the literature on the specific case of the tie of godparenthood, which until recently was considered a full-fledged kinship tie in most of the Christian world, and the study of which has much intensified in the last 15 years.