Not enough terms to learn in your genealogical quest? New terms...Old terms...Terms that just don't quite sound right. Here we have provided a list of terms you may encounter doing the genealogy thing.
Glossary of Genealogy Terms
ABSTRACT – Summary of important points of a given text, especially deeds and wills. ACRE – See measurements. ADMINISTRATION (of estate) – The collection, management and distribution of an estate by proper legal process. ADMINISTRATRIX – A female administrator. AFFIDAVIT – A statement in writing, sworn to before proper authority. ALIEN – Foreigner. AMERICAN REVOLUTION – U.S. war for independence from Great Britain 1775-1783. ANCESTOR – A person from whom you are descended; a forefather. ANTE – Latin prefix meaning before, such as ante-bellum South, “The South before the war”. APPRENTICE – One who is bound by indentures or by legal agreement or by any means to serve another person for a certain time, with a view of learning an art or trade. APPURTENANCE – That which belongs to something else such as a building, orchard, right of way, etc. ARCHIVES – Records of a government, organization, institution; the place where records are stored. ATTEST – To affirm; to certify by signature or oath. BANNS – Public announcement of intended marriage. BENEFICIARY – One who receives benefit of trust or property. BEQUEATH – To give personal property to a person in a will. Noun: bequest. BOND – Written, signed, witnessed agreement requiring payment of a specified amount of money on or before a given date. BOUNTY LAND WARRANT – A right to obtain land, specific number of acres of an allocated public land. Granted for military service CENSUS – Official enumeration, listing or counting of citizens. CERTIFIED COPY – A copy made and attested to by officers having charge of the original and authorized to give copies. CHAIN – See measurements. CHATTEL – Personal property which can include animate as well as inanimate properties. CHRISTEN – TO receive or initiate into the visible church by baptism; to mane at baptism; to give a name to. CIRCA – About, near or approximate – usually referring to a date. CIVIL WAR – War Between the States; war between the North and South, 1861-1865. CODICIL – Addition to a will. COLLATERAL ANCESTOR – Belong to the same ancestral stock but not in direct line of decent; opposed to lineal such as aunts, uncles & cousins. COMMON ANCESTOR – Ancestor shared by any two people. CONFEDERATE – Pertaining to the Southern states which seceded from the U.S. in 1860 – 1, government and citizens. CONSANGUINITY – Blood relationship. CONSORT – Usually a wife whose husband is living. CONVEYANCE – See deed. COUSIN – Relative descended from a common ancestor, but on a brother or sister. DAUGHTER-IN-LAW – Wife of one’s son. DECEASED – Dead. DECEDENT – A deceased person. DECLARATION OF INTENTION – First paper, sworn to and filed in court, by an alien stating that he wants to become a citizen. DEED – A document by which title in real property is transferred from one party to another. DEPOSITION – A testifying or testimony taken down in writing under oath of affirmation in reply to interrogatories, before a competent officer to replace oral testimony of a witness. DEVISE – Gift of real property by will. DEVISEE – One to which real property (land) is given in a will. DEVISOR – One who gives real property in a will. DISSENTER – One who did not belong to the established church, especially the Church of England in the American colonies. DISTRICT LAND OFFICE PLAT BOOK – Books or rather maps which show the location of the land patentee. DISTRICT LAND OFFICE TRACT BOOK – Books which list individual entries by range and township. DOUBLE DATING – A system of double dating used in England an America from 1582-1752 because it was not clear as to whether the year commenced January 1 or March 25. DOWER – Legal right or share which a wife acquired by marriage in the real estate of her husband, allotted to her after his death for her lifetime. EMIGRANT – One leaving a country and moving to another. ENUMERATION – Listing or counting, such as a census. EPITAPH – An inscription on or at a tomb or grave in memory of the one buried there. ESCHEAT – The reversion of property to the state when there are no qualified heirs. ESTATE – All property and debts belonging to a person. ET AL – Latin for “and others”. ET UX – Latin for “and wife”. ET UXOR – And his wife. Sometimes written simply as Et Ux. EXECUTOR – One appointed in a will to carry out its provisions. Female=Executrix. FATHER-IN-LAW – Father of one’s spouse. FEE – An estate of inheritance in land, being either fee simple or fee tail. An estate in land held of a feudal lord on condition of the performing of certain services. FEE SIMPLE – An absolute ownership without restriction. FEE TAIL – An estate of inheritance limited to lineal descendant heirs of a person to whom it was granted. FRANKLIN, STATE OF – An area once known but never officially recognized and was under consideration from 1784-1788 from the western part of North Carolina. FRATERNITY – Group of men (or women) sharing a common purpose or interest. FREE HOLD – An estate in fee simple, in fee tail, or for life. FRIEND – Member of the Religious Society of Friends; a Quaker. FURLONG – See measurements. GAZETTEER – A geographical dictionary; a book giving names and descriptions of places usually in alphabetical order. GENEALOGY – Study of family history and decent. GENTLEMAN – A man well born. GIVEN NAME – Name given to a person at birth or baptism, one’s first and middle names. GLEBE – Land belonging to a parish church. GRANTEE – One who buys property or receives a grant. GRANTOR – One who sells property or makes a grant. GREAT-AUNT – Sister of one’s grandparent. GREAT – UNCLE – Brother of one’s grandparent. GUARDIAN – Person appointed to care for and manage property of a minor orphan or and adult incompetent of managing his own affairs. HALF BROTHER/HALF SISTER – Child by another marriage of one’s mother or father; the relationship of two people who have only one parent on common. HEIRS – Those entitled bylaw or by the terms of a will to inherit property from another. HOLOGRAPHIC WILL – One written entirely in the testator’s own handwriting. HOMESTEAD ACT – Law passed by Congress in 1862 allowing a head of a family to obtain title to 160 acres of public land after clearing and improving it for 5 years. HUGENOT – A French Protestant in the 16th and 17th centuries. One of the reformed or Calvinistic communions who were driven by the thousands into exile in England, Holland, Germany and America. ILLEGITIMATE – Born to a mother who was not married to the child’s father. IMMIGRANT – One moving into a country from another. INDENTURE – Today it means a contract in 2 or more copies. Originally made in 2 parts by cutting or tearing a single sheet across the middle in a jagged line so the two parts may later be matched. INDENTURED SERVANT – One who bound himself into service of another person for a specified number of years, often in return for transportation to this country. INFANT – Any person not of full age; a minor. INSTANT – Of or pertaining to the current month. (Abbreviated inst.) INTESTATE – One who dies without a will or dying without a will. INVENTORY – An account, catalogue or schedule, made by an executor or administrator of all the goods and chattels and sometimes of the real estate of a deceased person. ISSUE – Offspring, children; lineal descendents of a common ancestor. LATE – Recently deceased. LEASE – An agreement which creates a landlord – tenant situation. LEGACY – Property or money left to someone in a will. LEGISLATURE – Lawmaking branch of state or national government; elected group of lawmakers. LEIN – A claim against property as security for payment of a debt. LINEAGE – Ancestry; direct decent from a specific ancestor. LINEAL – Consisting of or being in as direct line of ancestry or descendents; descended in a direct line. LINK – See measurements. LIS PENDENS – Pending court action; usually applies to land title claims. LODGE – A chapter or meeting hall of a fraternal organization. LOYALIST – Tory, an American colonist who supported the British side during the American Revolution. MAIDEN NAME – A girl’s last name or surname before she marries. MANUSCRIPT – A composition written with the hand as an ancient book or an un-printed modern good or music. MARRIAGE BOND – A financial guarantee that no impediment to the marriage existed, furnished by the intended bridegroom or by his friends. MATERNAL – Related through one’s mother, such as a maternal grandmother being the mother’s mother. MEASUREMENTS – Link – 7.92 inches; Chain – 100 Links or 66 feet; Furlong – 1000 links or 660 feet; Rod – 5 1⁄2 yards or 16 1⁄2 feet (also called a perch or pole); Rood – from 5 1⁄2 to 8 yards, depending on locality; Acre – 43,560 square ft. or 160 square rods. MESSUAGE – A dwelling house. METES & BOUNDS – Property described by natural boundaries, such as 3 notches in a white oak tree, etc. MICROFICHE – Sheet of microfilm with greatly reduced images of pages of documents. MICROFILM – Reproduction of documents on film at reduced size. MIGRANT – Person who moves from place to place, usually in search of work. MIGRATE – To move from one country or state or region to another. (Noun:migration) MILITIA – Citizens of a state who are not part of the national military forces but who can be called into military service in an emergency; a citizen army, apart from the regular military forces. MINOR – One who is under legal age; not yet a legal adult. MISTER – In early times, a title of respect given only to those who held important civil office or who were of gentle blood. MOIETY – A half; an indefinite portion. MORTALITY – Death; death rate. MORTALITY SCHEDULES – Enumeration of persons who died during the year prior to June 1 of 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880 in each state of the United States, conducted by the bureau of census. MORTGAGE – A conditional transfer of title to real property as security for payment of a debt. MOTHER-IN-LAW – Mother of one’s spouse. NAMESAKE – Person named after another person. NECROLOGY – Listing or record of persons who have died recently. NEE – Used to identify a woman’s maiden name; born with the surname of. NEPHEW – Son of one’s brother or sister. NIECE – Daughter of one’s brother or sister. NONCUPATIVE WILL – One declared or dictated by the testator, usually for persons in last sickness, sudden illness, or military. ORPHAN – Child whose parents are dead; sometimes, a child who has lost one parent by death. ORPHANS COURT – Orphans being recognized as wards of the states, provisions were made for them in special courts. PASSENGER LIST – A ships list of passengers, usually referring to those ships arriving from Europe. PATENT - Grant of land from a government to an individual. PATERNAL – Related to one’s father. Paternal grandmother is father’s mother. PEDIGREE – Family tree; ancestry. PENSION – Money paid regularly to an individual, especially by a government as a reward for military service during wartime or upon retirement from government service. PENSIONER – One who received a pension. PERCH – See measurements. POLE – See measurements. POLL – List or record of persons, especially for taxing or voting. POST – Latin prefix meaning after, as in post-war economy. POSTERITY – Descendants; those who come after. POWER OF ATTORNEY – When a person is unable to act for himself, he appoints another to act in his behalf. PRE – Latin prefix meaning before, as in pre-war military build-up. PRE-EMOTION RIGHTS – Right given by the federal government to citizens to buy a quarter section of land or less. PROBATE – Having to do with wills and the administration of estates. PROGENITOR – A direct ancestor. PROGENY – Descendants of a common ancestor; issue. PROVED WILL – A will established as genuine by probate court. PROVOST – A person appointed to superintend, or preside over something. PROXIMO – In the following month, in the month after the present one. PUBLIC DOMAIN – Land owned by the government. QUAKER – Member of the Religious Society of Friends. QUITCLAIM – A deed conveying the interest of the party at that time. RECTOR – A clergyman; the ruler or governor of a county. RELICT – Widow; surviving spouse when one has died, husband or wife. REPUBLIC – Government in which supreme authority lies with the people or their elected representatives. REVOLUTIONARY WAR – U.S. war for independence from Great Britain 1775-1783. ROD – See measurements. ROOD – See measurements. SHAKER – Member of a religious group formed in 1747 which practiced communal living and celibacy. SIBLING – Person having one or both parents in common with another; a brother or sister. SIC – Latin meaning thus; copied exactly as the original reads. Often suggests a mistake or spurprise in the original. SON-IN-LAW – Husband of one’s daughter. SPINSTER – A woman still unmarried; or one who spins. SPONSOR – A bondsman; surety. SPOUSE – Husband or wife. STATUTE – Law. STEP-BROTHER/STEP-SISTER – Child of one’s step-father or step-mother. STEP-CHILD – Child of one’s husband or wife from a previous marriage. STEP-FATHER – Husband of one’s mother by a later marriage. STEP-MOTHER – Wife of one’s father by a later marriage. SURNAME – Family name or last name. TERRITORY – Area of land owned by the United States, not a state, but having its own legislature. TESTATE – A person who dies leaving a valid will. TESTATOR – A person who makes a valid will before his death. TITHABLE – Taxable. TITHE – Formerly, money due as a tax for support of the clergy or church. TORY – Loyalist, one who supported the British side during the American Revolution. TOWNSHIP – A division of U.S. public land that contained 36 sectins, or 36 square miles. Also a subdivision of the county in many Northeastern and Midwestern states of the U.S. TRADITION – The handing down of statements, beliefs, legends, customs, genealogies, etc. from generation to generation, especially by word of mouth. TRANSCRIBE – To make a copy in writing. ULTIMO – In the month before this one. UNION – The United States; also the North during the Civil War, the states which did not secede. VERBATIM – Word for word; in the same words, verbally. VITAL RECORDS – Records of birth, death, marriage or divorce. VITAL STATISTICS – Data dealing with birth, death, marriage or divorce. WAR BETWEEN THE STATES – U.S. Civil War, 1861-1865. WARD – Chiefly the division of a city for election purposes. WILL – Document declaring how a person wants his property divided after his death. WITNESS – One who is present at a transaction, such as sale of land or signing of a will, who can testify or affirm that it actually took place. WPA HISTORICAL RECORDS SURVEY – A program undertaken by the U.S. Government 1935- 1936 in which inventories of historical material were compiled. YEOMAN – A servant, an attendant or subordinate official in a royal household; a subordinate of a sheriff; an independent farmer.
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