Descent group in the context of "Lineage (anthropology)"

Matrilineality, at times called matriliny, is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which people identify with their matriline, their mother's lineage, and which can involve the inheritance of property and titles. A matriline is a line of descent where a person inherits his or her mother's lineage. In a matrilineal descent system, individuals belong to the same descent group as their mothers. This is in contrast to the currently more popular pattern of patrilineal descent from which a family name is usually derived. The matriline of historical nobility was also called their enatic or uterine ancestry, corresponding to the patrilineal or "agnatic" ancestry.

Matrilineality, at times called matriliny, is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which people identify with their matriline, their mother's lineage, and which can involve the inheritance of property and titles. A matriline is a line of descent where a person inherits his or her mother's lineage. In a matrilineal descent system, individuals belong to the same descent group as their mothers. The matriline of historical nobility was also called their enatic or uterine ancestry, in contrast to the patrilineal or "agnatic" ancestry. The matriline is also sometimes referred to as the "distaff" side or "spindle" side.

Unilineality is a system of determining descent groups in which one belongs to one's father's or mother's line, whereby one's descent is traced either exclusively through male ancestors (patriline), or exclusively through female ancestors (matriline). Both patrilineality and matrilineality are types of unilineal descent. The main types of the unilineal descent groups are lineages and clans.

A lineage is a unilineal descent group that can demonstrate their common descent from a known apical ancestor. It is also called the simple unilineal descent.

Korean clans are groups of Korean people that share the same paternal ancestor. They are indicated by the combination of a bongwan (Korean: 본관; lit. place of origin) and a family name.

Korean clans distinguish clans that happen to share the same family name. The bongwan identifies descent groups by geographic place of origin. For example, the Gyeongju Kim and the Gimhae Kim are considered different clans, even though they happen to share the same family name Kim. In this case, Gyeongju and Gimhae are the respective bongwan of these clans. However, a clan name is not treated as a part of a Korean person's name. The bongwan and the family name are passed on from a father to his children, thus ensuring that person in the same paternal lineage sharing the same combination of the bongwan and the family name. A bongwan does not change by marriage or adoption.