ROOTS Genealogical Dictionary
ROOTS

Dictionary of Genealogy & Archaic Terms
Last Edited:
January 17, 2012
This file contains many of the common "buzzwords", terminology and legal
words found in genealogy work. If you think of any words that should be added to
this list, please notify Randy Jones.
- AB
- [Welsh son of] it is used before a vowel, which a
is used before a consonant. 'Ab Owen' becomes the surname 'Bowen'. "Ap" or
"ab" is not related to the Latin "ab", but is rather from the British "*mapos"
meaning "son" and is a cognate of Irish "mac". The word becomes "map" in Old
Welsh and "mab" in Modern Welsh. When following a personal name the "m"
lenites in a v-sound, still spelled "m" in Old Welsh, but increasingly spelled
"v" and "f" later on. The v-sound tends to be rather weak in Welsh (cf. "tref"
becoming "tre"), and in the highly formulaic nature of these names is lost.
- AB INITIO
- [Latin, from the beginning] used in situations regarding the
validity of will, deed, or other legal document
- AB NEPOS
- a great-great-grandson
- AB NEPTIS
- a great-great-granddaughter
- ABATEMENT
- 1) The difference between the amount of the estate
an heir
is to receive as specified in a will
and the amount actually received, due to property devaluation between the
time the will was made and when the death occurred; the entry of a stranger
into the estate after the death of the possessor but before the heir can take
control.
2) In heraldry, a mark of dishonor in a coat of arms. The most
common was the point and gore, which cut off an angle on the shield and was
awarded for lying, boasting, drunkenness, killing a prisoner who had
surrendered, rape, and sloth in war.
- ABAVUS
- [Latin] second great-grandfather
- ABCPSIA
- [archaic] blindness
- ABD
- [Arabic] servant/slave of ; late it connoted 'black slave' and thence just
'black'
- ABEYANCE
- a condition of undetermined ownership, as of an estate
that has not yet been assigned
- ABRUPTIO
- [Latin, breaking off] a divorce, most often found in church
records, parish books and legal documents.
- ABSTRACT
- a statement summarizing the essential facts contained in a document or
record
- ABSTRACT BOOK
- record books containing abstracts of the information contained on deeds
or land entries, usually listed in alphabetical order by surnames of the
purchasers
- ABSTRACT OF TITLE
- a short description of a piece of property and the history of its title
- ABUT
- adjoin, as in two real properties
- ACADIAN
- (1) An individual of French heritage inhabiting Acadia (the Canadian
Maritimes, including Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward, Cape Breton,
Newfoundland, as well as the Magdalenes, St. Pierre & Miquelon, and the
northern New England )
(2) A descendant of French settlers of Acadia who
were resettled in Louisiana, commonly known as "Cajuns"
- ACCELERATED INDEX
- an index prepared by computer, such as a census
index
- ACCOUCHEUR/ACCOUCHEUSE
- [archaic] male/female midwife
- ACCRETION
- right of inheritance by survival
- ACESCENSY
- [archaic] sour, acidity
- ACHIEVEMENT
- [Heraldry] a representation of all armorial devices to the bearer of the
arms is entitled
- ACREDALE
- A common field in which several proprietors held interest, not always on
an equal basis
- ACREMAN
- [Middle English] a man who ploughed or cultivated the land.
- ACTION
- a proceeding in a court of law
- AD EXHAEREDATIONEM
- [Latin] to disinherit adoption by hair. A ceremony performed to show
adoption by cutting off a piece of hair and giving it to the adoptive father.
- AD LITEM
- legal term meaning in this case "only". For example, "George Thomas, duly
appointed by the court, may administer ad litem the settlement of the estate
of Joseph Thomas, deceased."
- AD VERBATIM
- [Latin, to the word] in full
- ADMINISTRATION
- management and settlement of an estate
- ADMINISTRATOR
- an appointee of the court who settles the estate
of a deceased who died without leaving a will, or where an executor
is unwilling or unable to serve as executor.
- ADMINISTRATOR AD COLLIGENDUM
- [Latin] when a person dies and there is no apparent
executor or
administrator, the court may appoint such a person collect, preserve and
inventory the assets until a full administrator can be determined
- ADMINISTRATOR'S BOND
- a bond posted by an administrator to guarantee the proper performance of
his duties
- ADMINISTRATRIX
- a female administrator
- ADOPTION
- to take a child into one's home by legal means and raise as one's own,
with same legal rights as one's natural children
- ADSCRIPTICUS
- [Latin] a serf bound to a property
- ADULTERINE CASTLE
- a castle built without the over lord's approval
- ADVERT
- [archaic] to one's attention to
- ADVOWSON
- the right to appoint a person to the church's benefice, for with the
living came other appurtenances of the church - land which the priest used to
support himself, and first fruits and the tithe, which was a tax or levy of a
tenth of parishioners' income or produce to support the church. Other assets
might include mills or fisheries. This was a valued source of patonage.
- ADVANCEMENT
- a gift given to a living child in anticipation of inheritance
- ADVERSE POSSESSION
- occupying a property, then gaining title and ownership by keeping it for a
specified statutory period
- AE/AET
- [Latin from Aetatis] about the age of
- ĘDILE
- [Latin] a Roman magistrate in charge of the games and management of the
temples. In later times they were in charge of the public buildings, the
water system, food supplies, and the markets.
- ĘTAS
- [Latin] lifetime; age; generation
- ĘGROTANTEM
- [Latin] illness - sickness
- ĘTHELING
- [Anglo-Saxon prince royal] the eldest son of the king
- AFFEER
- to settle the amount of an amercement;
to assess
- AFFIDAVIT
- a written and signed statement sworn in front of a court officer
- AFFINIS, AFFINITAS, AFFINITY
- [Latin] relationship via marriage, as opposed to by blood. S CONSANGUINITY.
- AFFIRMATION
- a declaration, sometimes as a replacement for someone who objects to
taking an oath
- AGE OF CONSENT
- age at which persons may legally marry without parental approval. For
various ages in 18th C. Virginia (and England as well) see consent.html.
- AGE OF MAJORITY
- Prior to the modern designation of 21 as the age of majority, different
ages applied: If the fee is a military fee, the heir will be of full age when
he has completed his twenty-first year and reached his twenty-second. If he is
the son and heir of a sokeman, when he has completed his fifteenth year. If he
is the son of a burgess, he is taken to be of full age when he knows how
properly to count money, measure cloths and perform other similar paternal
business.12 Thus it is not defined in terms of time but by sense and maturity.
A woman may be of full age [in socage] whenever she can and knows how to order
her house and do the things that belong to the arrangement and management of a
house, provided she understands what pertains to 'cove and keye,' which cannot
be before her fourteenth or fifteenth year since such things require
discretion and understanding. -- from Bracton's Laws c.1400.
- AGUE
- a fever marked by chills
- AHL
- [Arabic] people, family, kin
- AHNENLIST
- a list of one's accordance with the AHNENTAFEL NUMBERS definition below.
ancestors,
with the first generation being #1, second #2-3, third #4-7, etc. May be
synonymous with AHNENTAFEL.
- AHNENTAFEL
- [German ancestor table] a list of ancestors numbered in
accordance with the system described below in AHNENTAFEL
NUMBERS. So-called because it was popularized by Stephen Kekule von
Stradonitz in his 1896 book, Ahnentafel Atlas. The system was first
used in a book by the Spanish geneologist Jerome de Sosa in 1676. Translated
from the German, "ahnen" means ancestor and "tafel" means table or list;
because of this literal translation, ahnentafel is sometime incorrectly used
to describe any list of ancestors. - Richard Pence -- [email protected].
- AHNENTAFEL NUMBERS
- the universally used method of numbering ancestors.
In it the number 1 is assigned to the subject of the list, then his or her
father is No. 2, the mother is No. 3, the paternal grandfather No. 4, etc. In
this system, a person's father's number is always twice the person's number
and his or her mother's number is twice-plus-one. Because of the structured
nature of the sytem, a person's ahnentafel number can be used to describe his
or her relationship to the subject of the list. This method of numbering
ancestors is used worldwide and is also called the "Sosa-Stradonitz System,"
after the genealogist who first used it and the one who popularized it (see AHNENTAFEL
above). This method of numbering ancestors is used both on lists of ancestors
or on ancestor charts. - Richard Pence -- [email protected]
- ALABARCH
- a Roman tax administrator
- ALCALDE
- a Spanish administrator
- ALDERMAN
- the elected representative of a ward, a
political subdivision of a city. In medieval times, the alderman
presided over the ward's court call the
Ward-Moots Court.
- ALERION
- [Heraldic] bird
- ALIAS
- [Latin - other] a pseudonym, false or alternative name
- ALIAS CAPIAS
- The writ of capias ad respondendum (capias)
ordered the sheriff to arrest a defendant in a civil case for appearance in
court to answer the plaintiff’s declaration. The writ states the name of
defendant, the court term when he was required to appear; the name of the
plaintiff, the form of action (in non-bailable cases this was a fictitious
trespass); and the names of the justice, clerk, and plaintiff's attorney. The
writ does not contain a statement of the plaintiffs claim. The Alias Capias is
the second issuance of a capias after the original had gone without answer.
- ALIEN
- someone who is not a citizen of one's own country
- ALLEGIENCE SUPREMACIE
- an oath to the King of England taken by ship passengers leaving England
during the 17th and 18th C.
- ALLOD
- [Latin allodium] a freehold estate
- ALLODIAL
- property exempted from mortmain
- ALMONER
- a religious official charged with distributing alms to the sick and poor
- ALMSMAN
- someone supported by charity or one who lived on alms
- ALVINE
- [archaic] pertaining to the bowels
- AMANUENSIS
- secretary, stenographer
- AMBER
- a measure of four bushels
- AMERCEMENT, AMERCIAMENT
- (1) punishment by imposition of an arbitrary fine not fixed by statute, at the 'mercy' of the king
or his lord,
usually for minor offences. This was the equivalent of a modern fine.
- (2) to punish by inflicting a discretionary or arbitrary punishment
{R}
- AMIR
- [Arabic] a military commander or provincial governor, although sometime
translated as 'prince', Amirs were under the nominal lordship of the
caliph.
- AMITA
- [Latin] the usual, but not always, interpretation in medieval
documents was that of paternal aunt
- AMPHORA
- a measure of five gallons
- AMSAR
- [Arabic] a fortress city
- ANCESTOR
- a person from whom you have descended
- ANCESTOR CHART
- report or chart that shows a person and all of their ancestors in a
graphical format. As opposed to the Ahnentafel
which is more of a narrative report.
- ANCESTRAL FILE
- a searchable database of 35 Million names developed by the Church of Jesus
Christ of the Latter Day Saints (commonly known as the Mormon Church).
Can be accessed at: http://www.familysearch.org/Search/searchaf.asp
- ANCIENT PLANTERS
- those who arrived in Virginia, USA before 1616. They may have been VA's first
'aristocracy.' Each such person with 3 years of residence was entitled to 100
acres as a 'first division'
- ANCILLA
- a female slave
- ANGLYDE
- [Anglo-Saxon] compensation to a wronged person
- ANILE
- [archaic] like an ols woman; imbecillic
- ANNO DOMINI
- [Latin, in the year of our lord] a date as measured from the birth
of Jesus Christ
- ANNOTATION
- interpretation, explaination, clarification, definition, or supplement.
Many types of genealogical presentations contain statements, record sources,
documents, conclusions, or other historical information that require an
annotation. Generally, annotations appear in footnotes, end-notes, or in the
text itself. Genealogical software provides a field for documentation,
comments, notes, and analysis. Genealogists use annotations to explain
discrepancies between two or more documents, to add information from another
source to support a statement or conclusion made in a different record, and
other difficult to interpret situations.
- ANNULET
- [Heraldric] an open ring
- ANNUS
- [Latin year]
- ANNWYL
- [Welsh dear, favorite]
- ANTECESSOR
- a previous owner of a property, not necessarily a blood relative,
especially during early Medieval times
- AP
- [Welsh son of] It is used before a consonant; ab
is used before a vowell. 'Ap Hywell' becomes 'Powell'. "Ap" or "ab" is not
related to the Latin "ab", but is rather from the British 'mapos' meaning
'son' and is a cognate of Irish "mac".
The word becomes ' map' in Old Welsh and 'mab' in Modern Welsh. When following
a personal name the "m" lenites in a v-sound, still spelled "m" in Old Welsh,
but increasingly spelled "v" and "f" later on. The v-sound tends to be rather
weak in Welsh (cf. "tref" becoming "tre"), and in the highly formulaic nature
of these names is lost. "Moricantos mapos Totorigos" (genitive of Totorix)
-> Old Welsh "Morcant map Tutur" -> Modern Welsh "Morgan ap Tudur".See
also bachgen.
- APANAGES
- Apanages were usually large fiefdoms of the Royal Domain recently joined
to the crown and given by the king to his younger sons or brothers. In
the absence of a legitimate heir, the apanages reverted to the crown.
- APERIENT
- [archaic] laxative
- APOPLEXY
- [archaic] a stroke
- APPRENTICE
- a person bound by
indenture for a specified period in order to learn an art or trade
- APPURTENANCES
- the rights attached to real property. In medieval times, it included
grazing rights, payment of fines, a pew in church, etc.
- ARATHRA
- the amount of land that could be plowed in a year
- ARCHIVE
- a place for the storage of older records
- ARGENT
- [Heraldry, French silver] one of the seven allowed colors
-- silver colored and represented by a plain white surface
- ARMIGER
- in medieval times, one entitled to bear arms, as opposed to an esquire,
carried someone else's arms. Typically this individual attended a
knight.
- ARMORIAL BEARINGS
- what constitutes a person's arms. Strictly speaking, a coat of arms is a
knight's surcoat on which his armorial bearings are displayed. This would
include the coat of arms, helmet, crest, mantling and badge. See also ARMS
COMPLETE, ESCUTCHEON.
- ARMS COMPLETE, or ARMS ACHIEVEMENT
- a complete coat of arms with helmet, crest, mantling and badge. See also
ARMORIAL
BEARINGS.
- ARPENT
- [Old French]
(1) unit of land measure, sometimes used in parts of
French North America, such as Quebec and Louisiana, and in certain British
colonies, varying from 0.84 to 1.28 acres, or about five
perches
(2) unit of linear measure equal
to approximately 11.5 rods, or about two and a quarter
perches
- ARRADA
- a medieval siege weapon similar to a giant crossbow
- ASCENDANT
- see
ANCESTOR
- ASCII
- American Standard Code for Information Interchange - type of file on a
computer that is usually readable / writable by most word processors.
- ASSART
- to turn woodlands or wastelands into cropland
- ASSIGNEE
- the person to whom a privilege or some property is signed over by the
court. "See Assignment".
- ASSIGNMENT
- grant of property or a legal right, benefit, or privilege to another
person. In colonial and medieval times the process could be lengthy, involving
payment of consideration to the crown, obtaining a receipt from the treasurer,
getting an auditor's certificate, getting the land surveyed and recorded. The
right to the land could be "assigned" at any time in the process to a third
party. It was not unusual to have six or seven assignments before the final
recording.
- ASSIGNOR
- the person who signs over the right or some property to another
- ASSISTANT MARSHALL
- census
taker prior to 1880
- ASSIZE
- a meeting of feudal vassals with the king
- ASSIZE OF BREAD OR ALE
- regulation of the price of bread or beer
- ASSUMPSIT
- [Latin, he has undertaken] a legal action to recover damages
- ATABEG
- [Turkish] a title, originally for tutors of the ruling prince, but later
for governors and other high level officers of state
- ATHA
- oath
- ATHELING
- see ĘTHELING
- ATTAINTED
- in England, because Parliament is a court, and the highest in the land,
attainder became a legislative act declaring a person guilty of treason or
felony (almost always treason) rather than using a regular judicial process of
trial and conviction. In 1450, according to the Historical Dictionary of the
Elizabethan World, attainder was "extended to the convicted traitor's heirs,
who were declared 'corrupt of blood' and therefore unable to inherit property
or exercise certain civil rights." Attainder was abolished in England in 1870.
The U.S. Constitution of 1787 specifically forbids bills of attainder by
either Congress or the state legislatures and equally forbids any judicial
conviction working corruption of the blood.
- ATTE
- an English surname prefix meaning "at the" or "of the", usually used in
conjunction with a generic topographical feature: "wood" (thus Atwood), "well"
(Atwell), etc. "Stone" fits this definition. It may not be seen much due to
the fact that it was used in humbler families. The Latin equivalent is "de la"
or "del."
- ATTEST
- to affirm, certify by oath or signature
- AUGMENTATION
- [Heraldric] an additional charge
to arms usually as a mark of honour. This was not used until after 1385 in
Britain.
- AUGUSTA
- a title typically bestowed by the Roman emperor on his wife, but it could
be bestowed on his mother, sisters or daughters as well. The title
carried considerable authority, beyond just being the spouse of the emperor.
Several augusta were de facto emperors.
- AUGUSTALIS
- [Latin] a priest of an order instituted by Tiberius dedicated to the
worship of Augustus and the Julii. There were usually 21 at a time,
chosen from among the prominent citizens of Rome
- AUGUSTUS
- the Roman emperor. The title was first taken by Octavian and was
used by emperors thereafter. See augusta.
- AUM
- an old Dutch and German unit of liquid varying from 36-42 gallons
- AUNT
- sister of one of one's parents, or the wife of the brother of one's
parents
- AUREUS
- [Latin] a gold coin initiated by roman emperor Augustus, as the standard
for the Roman monetary system from that time until Constantine's
solidus replaced it
- AUSTIN FRIAR
- an order of friars founded by St. Augustine, and emphasizing urban
preaching
- AUTOKRATOR
- [Byzantine] Greek equivalent of imperator, or emperor
- AVA, AVIA
- [Latin, grandmother]
- AVER
- an animal used in agriculture
- AVI, AVORUM
- [Latin, grandparents]
- AZOTE
- [archaic] nitrogen
- AZURE
- [Heraldric] one of the seven allowed colors
-- blue, or represented in black-and-white as horizontal lines
- AVUNCULUS
- [Latin, uncle] prior to 1400 it usually meant maternal uncle
- AVUS
- [Latin, grandfather]
-
A | B |
C |
D |
E |
F |
G |
H |
I |
J
K |
L |
M |
N |
O |
P |
Q |
R |
S |
T |
U |
V |
W |
X | Y |
Z
Sources:
{A}The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third
Edition copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
{B} Black's Law Dictionary, 6th Edition
{D} Dictionary.com
{E} Evans, Barbara Jean. The New A to Zax
{F}The Dictionary of Genealogy by Terrick V H Fitzhugh
{O}The Oxford English Dictionary
{P} Pepys' diary
{Q} Hinshaw, William Wade, "Encyclopedia of America Quaker Genealogy," (1938,
Rpt., Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1994)
{W} Webster's Collegiate Dictionary; Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA,
Inc.
Return to Genealogy
Home Page
Send your comments to Randy Jones