Search

This article presents results of a study conducted in two suburbs outside London, England and San Francisco, California, respectively, to ascertain family relationships. It was found that the groups were found to be similar, when in both cases, parents in their old age maintained close ties with their adult children both in terms of geography and frequency of contact, and daughters play consistently more important parts in their parents' lives than sons. The difference was that a larger proportion of the American group have knowledge of and pride in their pedigree, while the English group have relatively little knowledge of ancestry. The study was carried out on a countrywide basis in a limited way with a group of 3,964 for the U.S.A. and 900 for Great Britain. Results of the study suggest that old people generally maintain close links with their children and that the mother-daughter tie is the central nexus of the kinship network of industrial societies. Concern for ancestry seems to be more pronounced in the U.S.A. than in Great Britain. But in view of the size of the inquiry these statements are not so much findings as suggestions for further research.