i figure if there is an answer to this question, i’ll find it here. . . first, i must divulge my life history to set the background. i have two daughters, we’ll call them Sue and Blue. Blue’s dad remarried and had a son, call him Drew. sue and blue are half sisters, blue and drew are half sister/brothers, is there any word or phrase for sue and drew? and PLEASE don’t lecture me on labeling, it doesn’t matter to me, i love them all. . . . i just KNOW there’s a word out there somewhere!!!
on the subject of human diversity; it’s all the same, we just shop at different wal-marts! [EMAIL=gypsiesoul420@aol.com]gypsiesoul420@aol.com
There’s no word that I can remember, although today’s families could really use one. The kids could use the terms stepsister and stepbrother. Even though that’s not dictionary-definition true, it would give the correct impression of family. The most technically accurate way for Sue to introduce Drew would be as “my sister’s brother.”
Drew is Sue’s half sister’s half brother. Since you were married to Drew’s Dad, I guess Drew could be Sue’s stepbrother.
Since Sue and Drew are not related by blood and not related by (anyone’s) marriage, it’s not surprising that there would be no formal name for their relationship. John’s description (“Drew is Sue’s half sister’s half brother.”) is the most precise. Unless you want to invent a word, “We don’t know what to call him but we love him” may be the best thing to say.
If the children maintain close ties, it is efficient, but not correct, to say they are step-siblings. This let’s it be known that Sue and Drew are not related by blood, but doesn’t go into detail, which is none of most people’s business. Let them figure it out.
I am the tail end of a rather lengthy such chain:
FtG -> L -> P -> A -> M
P was my step-sibling. But since we grew up together, we consider ourselves siblings with no qualification. A and M have no namable relation to me short of chaining “halves” together.
Some people use the term “3/4 sibling” to describe children related, for example, by same father and mothers were sisters. (A surprising number of marriages to the younger sister after the older dies occurs in my genealogical research.) I don’t know what “1/4 sibling” would possibly be.
Half-siblings share one genetic parent; step-siblings share no genetic heritage but are considered part of a family resulting from remarriage.
A & B marry and have C.
A remarries and has D.
C and D are half-siblings.
B remarries E, who has a child F by a previous marriage to G.
C and F are step-siblings. C’s parents are A and B; F’s parents are E and G. They share no common genetic heritage. But they are both “children” of B and E in the sense of being a part of the household created by B and E’s marriage.
D and F are no relation, although they are both some form of sibling to C.
My ward had this sort of situation crop up. His mother remarried a man whose ex-wife had three sons and a daughter. The boy his age was by another man than my son’s stepfather. But they regarded each other as brothers of a sort, even though they realized that they were no relation to each other.