GENEALOGICAL DICTIONARY
Page One "A-M"
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.
ADMINISTRATOR (of estate) - Person appointed
to
manage or divide the estate of a deceased
person.
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
in ante-bellum
South, "The South before the war"
APPRENTICE - One who is bound by indentures
or by l
egal 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 unallocated
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
name 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
North and South, 1861 -65.
CODICIL - Addition to a will.
COLLATERAL ANCESTOR - Belong to the same
ancestral stock but not in direct line of
descent; 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, their government
and their
citizens.
CONSANGUINITY - Blood relationship.
CONSORT - Usually, a wife whose husband is
living
CONVEYANCE - See deed.
COUSIN - Relative descended from a common
ancestral
grandmother or grandfather.
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 be
come 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
to
oral testimony of a witness.
DEVISE - Gift of real property by will.
DEVISEE - One to whom 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\par 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 and 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
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\par 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
descent.
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 an adult
incompetent of
managing his own affairs.
HALF BROTHER/HALF SISTER - Child by another
marriage of one's mother or father.
Siblings having
only one parent in common.
HEIRS - Those entitled by law 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.
HUGUENOT - A French Protestant in the 16th
and
17th centuries. One of the reformed
or calvinistic
communion 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\par
for a specified
number of years, often in return for transportation
to
this country.
INFANT - Any person not of full age; a minor.
INTESTATE - One who dies without a will
or dying
without a will.
INVENTORY - An account, catalog 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 descendants
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.
LIEN - A claim against property as security
for payment
of a debt.
LINEAGE - Ancestry; direct descent from
a specific
ancestor.
LINEAL - Consisting of or being in a direct
line of
ancestry or descendants; 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.
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