@DaveSch My point was only that ‘male-line descendants’ would imply that both male male-line descendants and female male-line descendants are selected (which is the ability I was writing about in the previous thread). When you wrote about adding adopted sons I thought you only added adopted sons and not adopted daughters.
Male-line (patrilineal) descendants should include both males and females who are connected to the progenitor with a chain consisting of only males. Here’s a sample tree showing patrilineal/male-line descendants - green boxes represent male-line descendants and red boxes represent non-male-line descendants.
It makes perfect sense to add adopted children if we are not concerned about the genetic aspect of patrilineality but male-line/patrilineal descendants would also include females descended in the male line (vide this explanation of patrilineage).