relatives

Relations either by blood or affinity. As persons excluded from voting in a creditors' meeting for the election of a trustee in bankruptcy:-persons related to the bankrupt by affinity or consanguinity within the third degree, as determined by the common law, and the spouse of the bankrupt. Bankruptcy Act § 1(27); 11 USC § 1(27). The word "relatives" when used in a contract has no such fixed and definite meaning as will thwart the express intention of a party thereto. Bennett v Van Riper, 47 NJ Eq 563, 22 A 1055. The rule is quite universal in the state jurisdic tions that the word embraces the persons who would take under a statute of distribution and descent in case of intestacy. Thus, by virtue of the right to take under the statute of distribution and descent in New York, an illegitimate child and its mother are not only relatives, but are parent and child within the meaning of the statute. See Middleton v Luckenbach S.S. Co. (CA2 NY) 70 F2d 326. See degrees of kinship; relations; relations by blood.