Family relationships card game

A card game for teaching family relationships made up of a first group of cards carrying indicia, such as a name alone or in conjunction with an appropriate illustration, corresponding to the individual members of plural, preferably three, adjacent generations of a family and including a plurality of cards for each such member; and a second group of cards carrying indicia descriptive of the relationships existing between any pair of different family members within these plural generations from the perspective of the particular player of the game and including a plurality of such cards for each such relationship for controlling during play the association of the family member cards in a predetermined pattern.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
This invention relates to a card game having both educational and 
instructional values and is concerned more particularly with a card game 
designed to provide instruction in family relationships, especially for 
young children, in the context of entertaining and competitive game play. 
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
In earlier generations, the social organization of the family was such as 
to result in the exposure of young children to older relatives outside 
their immediate family as a natural consequence of repeated personal 
contact and interaction. Thus, in a typical situation, a family would 
become established in a given locale, and as the children of this family 
matured, they would create new families which would in turn settle nearby, 
and the individuals throughout this family chain would have frequent, 
virtual day to day, contact with one another so that the younger members 
would from this natural process acquire a definite understanding of their 
role in the extended family chain and their relationship to more remote 
members of that chain. 
With the increased mobility of society in current times, mainly as a result 
of almost universal access to the automobile, the pattern of earlier days 
rarely is followed; in distinct contrast, the tendency is for children of 
a given root family to create their own families in areas distant from the 
root family. Therefore, the families of later generations tend to evolve 
in a more or less isolated state with at most only occasional personal 
contact with immediate family members of earlier generations and even less 
contact with more distant family members. Indeed, this tendency is so 
pronounced in modern society that social observers have coined the phrase 
"nuclear family" to connote the isolated self-contained condition of 
modern families. As a consequence of this different social pattern, the 
children of such "nuclear families" have little exposure to family members 
of earlier generations and, therefore, have little opportunity to develop 
a clear understanding of how the members of a family chain are related, 
the real meaning of such relationship and how they personally fit into 
this chain. 
OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION 
The primary object of this invention is to provide a card game which in the 
course of its play will aid in conveying to the players a clear sense of 
the manner in which the individual members of plural generations of a 
family chain are related to one another. 
It is also an object of this invention to provide a card game incorporating 
the competitive spirit typical of such games so that its instructional 
aspects are disguised but will be naturally imparted in the competitive 
spirit of play.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
In general, the card game of the present invention is constituted by a deck 
of cards, formed of the same stiff sheet material ordinarily employed for 
playing cards, which is constituted of two basic types or groups of cards. 
The first such group will carry on one face, i.e. the obverse face, of the 
cards thereof indicia, i.e., markings, printing or the like, 
representative or denotive of the indiviudual family members forming part 
of a plurality or series of adjacent family generations and will be 
subsequently referred to as the "indivudal" or "personality" group of 
cards. The style and form of such indicia may, of course, vary, one simple 
form being a word designation corresponding to the particular individual 
family member which a given "individual" card is intended to represent. If 
desired, these word designations could be accompanied by visual 
illustrations or depictions suggestive of a stereotype of the individual 
family member (which depictions are not shown in the drawings) and such 
stereotypic depictions could naturally be adapted to any cultural or 
ethnic group for which a particular set of cards might be designed. 
FIG. 2 illustrates a simple style or arrangement for the cards of the 
"individual" group, there being shown in this figure only four examples of 
such cards which are obviously not by any means intended to include all of 
the conceivable possibilities. It is preferred although not essential that 
each card of the "individual" group carry at an appropriate location 
thereon, for instance the four corners thereof, as indicated in the cards 
of FIG. 2, additional indicia denoting scoring values which can be used in 
determining the winner of a particular series of play. Most preferably, 
higher scoring values are given for certain particular family members, for 
instance, for originating members of the earliest generation of the series 
who can be considered as the "root members" of the family chain. The 
magnitude of these scoring values for any of the cards is widely variable. 
In FIG. 2, the numerals 11 and 12 designate the "Pa" and "Ma" cards of the 
individual group, while the numerals 13 and 14 designate the "Bro" and 
"Sis" cards. Each of these cards has scoring values printed on the corners 
thereof as at 15, 16, 17 and 18, respectively. The scoring values for 
cards 11 and 12 are double those of cards 13 and 14. 
A variety of different names is available to designate the individual 
members of a family chain and the following is a representative listing, 
with some alternatives in parentheses, which is by no means intended to be 
exhaustive of all conceivable possibilities; an exemplary scoring value is 
associated with each of these names for illustrative purposes: 
______________________________________ 
Individual Scoring Value 
______________________________________ 
Pa (Pop) 10 
Ma (Mom) 10 
Grandpa (Grampa) 10 
Grandma (Gran) 10 
Auntie 5 
Unc 5 
Sis 5 
Bro (Jr.) (Buddy) 5 
______________________________________ 
If the game of the invention is to be played by multiple players as will 
usually be the case, a plurality of cards for each of the individual 
family members included must be provided so that each player can have 
access to each kind, and the number of cards for each kind of individual 
can be the same or they can be different in order to increase the level of 
difficulty in play. For example, fewer cards might be provided for the 
"root members" having the highest scoring values than for the cards 
corresponding to the other family members. 
In a variation, the "individual" card group could include a card designated 
"ME", i.e. corresponding to the particular player, and a special high 
scoring value could be attached to this card to encourage its play and 
thereby emphasize the significance of the relationship of the individual 
player to the cards corresponding to other family members. 
The cards in the individual group must cover at least two adjacent 
generations and, optimally, a series of at least three or more 
generations, unless the particular game is designed for very young players 
in which case two generations might suffice. Since a plurality of cards is 
desirable for each individual member of each generation, it is evident 
that the total number of cards would become unwieldy unless restrictions 
are placed on the number of generations and/or the variety of individual 
family members within a given generation. 
The second group of cards making up the game of the invention carries 
indicia identifying the relationship that exists between any given pair of 
different family members within the extended family chain, and these cards 
will be herein designated as the "relationship" group. The relationship 
being identified by the second group of cards is, of course, determined 
from the perspective or viewpoint of the particular individual player of 
the game. The purpose or function of the cards of the "relationship" group 
is to determine or control the play of the individual cards in whatever 
pattern of play might be decided upon. These indicia will normally take 
the form of word designations which are descriptive of the particular 
relationship existing between a given pair of amily members and during 
play the proper "relationship" card will serve to "connect" two 
"individual" cards of the appropriate kind. Scoring values could likewise 
appear on the "relationship" cards in order to increase the magnitude of 
the scoring count available at the end of play or such values could be 
omitted, leaving the relationship cards "neutral" in terms of scoring 
count. Here again, where the game is intended for multiple players, a 
plurality of cards corresponding to each relationship needs to be provided 
and the possibility of increasing the number of cards to unwieldy 
proportions again should be borne in mind. 
The following is a listing of conceivable terms descriptive of family 
relationships and as before this listing is not intended to be exhaustive 
or all inclusive. For illustration sake, the same scoring value is 
associated with each of the relationship names, but this value is variable 
at will: 
______________________________________ 
Relationship Scoring Value 
______________________________________ 
Father 5 
Mother 5 
Grandfather 5 
Grandmother 5 
Aunt 5 
Uncle 5 
Sister 5 
Brother 5 
Son 5 
Daughter 5 
Wife 5 
Husband 5 
______________________________________ 
In FIG. 1, the numbers 21-24 designate foud kinds of exemplary 
"relationship" cards, namely, "Father", "Mother", "Sister" and "Brother", 
respectively, and each of these four kinds of cards carries identical 
scoring values of an arbitrary magnitude, as at 25. 
From a comparison of the aforegoing listing of individual and relationship 
names, it becomes obvious that in certain instances it becomes difficult 
to identify names for family members that are suggestive of relationship 
without at the same time being suggestive of a family member as an 
individual or person. To avoid any confusion in this regard, the two 
groups of cards could be distinguished by means or color or other 
designation so that it would be clear when a given card is intended to 
designate a relationship instead of an individual and vice versa. 
Alternatively, it would be entirely acceptable for certain cards to be 
playable in either group at the option of the player, for example cards 
designated niece and nephew, and these cards might be considered as "wild" 
cards in the manner of many card games. 
Obviously, many variations are possible. For instance, it might be possible 
for a deck of cards to be "customized" on special order so that the actual 
given Christian names of the individuals of a particular family could 
appear in printed form along with the more generalized indicia. As an 
alternative, the cards can be provided with an erasable surface, for 
instance by means of a plastic coating, on which the given family names 
could be written with a removable grease pencil or the like. In these 
ways, the play of the game could be made more personal with an added level 
of excitement. 
There are imaginable any number of patterns of play for the card game of 
the present invention. One pattern might follow the general style of 
"solitaire", as illustrated in FIG. 3, in which a "root family" card is 
necessary to begin a chain of cards. Starting from this root family card, 
other individual member cards could be added to the chain provided that an 
appropriate relationship card was first placed on the root member card and 
every subsequent individual card so as to connect the two adjacent 
individual cards in their proper relationship. Thus, with reference to 
FIG. 3, the game would start with the "Pa" card as the root card. In order 
for a "Bro" card to be played, a "Son" card must be in the possession of 
the player and played simultaneously since the players brother would 
necessarily be the son of the players father. Assuming that a "Ma" card 
was held by the player, the "Ma" card could be played only in conjunction 
with a "Mother" card since the player's "Ma" would necessarily be the 
mother of the player's brother. Continuing the sequence, a "Sis" card 
could be played only with a "Daughter" card inasmuch as the player's sis 
is the daughter of the player's ma and, likewise, a "Bro" card would 
require a "Brother" relationship card, as the player's bro is the brother 
of the player's sister. Obviously, the identity of the individual cards as 
well as the relationship of the relationship cards are selected from the 
perspective or viewpoint of each individual player in order to fulfill the 
basic objective of the present game of instructing each individual player 
as to his place in the family chain. 
Alternatively, the pattern of play could follow the style of "gin rummy" in 
which groups of three, five or more cards (not illustrated in the 
drawings) constituted of a pair or a series of pairs of individual cards 
with each pair connected by an appropriate relationship card, could be 
exposed on the playing surface in front of the player as each such group 
was completed. 
In each of the examples of patterns of play, a "hand" of cards could 
initially be dealt to each player in a given game, followed by the drawing 
of additional cards from the top of the "deck" as the play progresses 
around the players. Variations on these patterns as well as completely 
different patterns of play are imaginable to those skilled in the art of 
card games. 
The reverse surface of the cards in the present game could be left plain or 
they could be printed with an attractive design as is typical. Following 
the normal style of card games, the cards of the present invention might 
well be rectangular in shape but they could equally be round or polygonal 
in configuration if preferred. For very young children, the card size 
could be increased to simplify handling and the indicia designations 
printed in large size type or in a phonetic style to assist in increasing 
the word recognition and pronounciation skills of this category of 
players. Other modifications and variations are readily possible and are 
not intended to be excluded from the scope of the invention except as may 
be required by the wording of the appended claims.