Compare methods

	Residue Analysis (Kinship Terminology)	Genealogical Method
Field	Anthropology	Anthropology
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	1988	1910
Originator	Cognitive anthropology and formal semantics tradition (codified by Bernard; Weller & Romney)	W. H. R. Rivers
Type	Formal-semantic technique for defining kin categories by distinctive features	Systematic field procedure for collecting and reconstructing kinship genealogies
Seminal source	Bernard, H. R. (2017). Research Methods in Anthropology: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches (6th ed.). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN: 9780759112421	Rivers, W. H. R. (1910). The genealogical method of anthropological inquiry. The Sociological Review, 3(1), 1–12.
Aliases	Componential Residue Analysis, Feature Residue Method, Distinctive-Feature Analysis of Kin Terms, Kin-Term Componential Analysis	Genealogical Method of Inquiry, Pedigree Method, Kinship Genealogy Collection, Rivers Method
Related	4	4
Summary	Residue analysis is a componential, formal-semantic technique for defining the categories named by kinship terms. Each kin term is treated as a bundle of distinctive features — such as sex of relative, generation, and lineality — and the analyst seeks the minimal set of features that exactly picks out the genealogical positions the term covers. The cases a candidate definition fails to account for form the residue, and competing feature definitions are tested by which leaves the smallest, most principled residual. The method makes the implicit logic of a kin-term system explicit and falsifiable.	The genealogical method is W. H. R. Rivers' systematic procedure for collecting kinship genealogies in the field using a small, fixed set of questions and the community's own kin terms. By asking each informant a standard sequence — who are your parents, your siblings, your spouse, your children, and so on — and recording named individuals together with the relationship terms applied to them, the ethnographer accumulates concrete pedigrees. These pedigrees are then assembled to reconstruct descent, marriage, residence, and the broader principles of social organization.