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| Acre | An area of land that is equal to 43,560 square feet.. In old surveys this is equal to 10 square chains or 160 square poles. |
| Administrator | A court appointee who settles the estate of someone who died without leaving a will. |
| Administratrix | A female court appointee who settles the estate of a person who died without leaving a will. |
| Ahnentafel | A list of one's ancestors with each one numbered in a sequential manner that makes it easy to calculate relationships. |
| aka or a/k/a or a.k.a. | Abbreviation for "also known as" |
| Allied Family | A family connected by marriage to another which is of primary interest. |
| Banns | Publication oor posting of the announcement of a coming marriage to allow advance notice to those that might have reason to protest. |
| Baptismal Certificate | A formal document recording the baptism of an individual. Baptismal books are normally kept by the church. |
| Bequest | In colonial times the term bequest designated any form of personal property passing under a will. |
| Blacksmith | A worker of metals using hand tools and a forge. |
| Bond | A certificate or other evidence of a debt owed to the person holding the bond, promising payment by the person obligated to the bond, usually with stated interest to be paid as a percentage of the stated bond value. |
| Bounty Land | Land given to those serving in the U.S. military as payment for their services. |
| Calendar Change - 16th to Middle 18th Centuries | Very confusing, but very important to genealogists. Please reference explanation at http://www.eogen.com/CalendarChange16thCentury |
| CA or Circa | A Latin term referring to the approximate year, meaning "about the year..." |
| Collateral Ancestor | Legal term referring to a person not in the direct line of ascent. Generally means a brother or sister of an ancestor. |
| Collateral Descendant | A term which refers to a descendant of the brother or sister of an ancestor. |
| Consort | Applies to the spouse who died first, and is generally used to refer to the wife. When called "the consort of John Smith," it means that Mrs. Smith died first and that Mr. Smith then became a widower -- the Relict. |
| Cousin | In colonial America, a cousin could be a nephew, a niece, the spouse of a nephew or niece, or any person who shares a common ancestor. |
| Deed | A legal instrument signed by a Grantor giving to a Grantee title in the real property described in the instrument. |
| Defendant | The person defending or denying the charge, or against whom relief or recovery is sought in a case. |
| Denization | Act of granting the right of permanent residence to a person not of native birth. |
| Deposition | The sworn testimony of a witness taken out of court by prepared questions answered and sworn in front of an examiner, for later use in court. |
| DNA | Y chromosomal DNA is shared by all male siblings with a common father. It is passed on only to sons and thus follows the paternal surname naming pattern now common in European cultures and their deriatives. If there has been no interruption of the passage by adoption, illegitimacy or surname modification, males with a surname in common will often have a common ancestor in their pedigree. For this reason there has been much interest in Y chromosomal DNA by those trying to establish a link to others with the same surname. |
| do | Some genealogical records include the abbreviation "do". In contemporary sources, such as abbreviated queries, "do" may mean "daughter of". It is also generally in use, especially in Scotland, to abbreviate "ditto." |
| Double Cousins | Cousins who are related on both the maternal and paternal sides of their families are known a "double cousins." Double cousins share four common grandparents as the result of siblings from one family choosing spouses who are siblings in another family. |
| Dower | A dower is the amount of an estate that a widow is entitled to upon the death of her husband, to support herself and her minor children if there be any. |
| Esquire | In U.S. law, a title given to justices of the peace and other inferior court officers such as lawyers. Often abbreviated, as:James Jones, Esq. |
| Executor | The person charged with carrying out the dictates of a will. |
| GEDCOM | GEDCOM is an acronym that stands for GEnealogy Data COMunications. In short, GEDCOM is the language by which different genealogy software programs talk to one another. The purpose is to exchange data between dissimilar programs without having to manually re-enter all the data on a keyboard. |
| Genealogy | 1. A record or table of the descent of a person, family, or group from an ancestor or ancestors; a family tree. 2. Direct descent from an ancestor, 3. The study or investigation of ancestry and family histories. |
| Gentleman | In early U.S. usage, a man of worth with rank above Yeoman. In early English usage, a man of "birth" but not noble, having no title or coat of arms, but whose ancestors have been freemen. |
| Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) | An organization of veterans of the Union Army in the U.S. Civil War. All the veterans obviously died many years ago but their records and their cemetery insignia live on. |
| Grantee | The person to whom a grant is made, typically by a deed of real estate property. |
| Grantor | The person by whom a grant is made, typically by a deed of real estate property. |
| Indenture | In general, a deed or contract entered into by two or more parties, defining reciprocal grants, obligations, or commitments among them, including possibly financial, time periods, and other conditions. |
| Intestate | When a person dies without having made a legal will. |
| Issue | In a genealogical context, issue often refers to an individual's children. |
| Naming Patterns | Some societies formed naming patterns which were followed consistently and without exceptions in naming their children. |
| One-Name Study | Genealogical research dedicated to finding and documenting every person with a single surname who has ever lived, throughout the world. |
| Pedigree | Pedigree refers to a person's direct ancestors. A modern pedigree chart shows a person's pedigree in a graphical format and typically uses lines and/or the relative position of names to make the relationships clear. |
| Personal Representative | A term encompassing executors and administrators of decedent's estates. |
| Probate Records | Probate records document the disposition of a deceased individual's property and the placement of his minor children. |
| Quit-claim Deed | A release or relinquishing of all one's claims -- typically to a piece of land -- without guaranteeing the title. |
| Relict | A relict is the surviving spouse upon the death of the other partner, either husband or wife. |
| Sources and Citations | A source is the origin of genealogical information that may become evidence after a genealogist has properly analyzed it as part of reaching a conclusion. A citation is a reference to a source. |
| Squatter | A person who lives on land he does not own may be called a squatter. Squatters could not sell their improed land, lacking legal title, but sometimes conveyed their improvements by quitclaim deed. |
| Tenure (land) | The mode or method of holding or occupying lands or tenements with obligations to some superior. |
| Transcript | A transcript or transcription is a literal copy of another document. |
| Vital Records | Vital records consist of birth, marriage, divorce and death records. |
| Viz. | Literally "that is to say; namely; to wit: used to introduce an amplification, or more precise or explicit explanation, of a previous statement or word." |
| Will and Testament | Shortened form of Last Will and Testament. Both words carry the same definition, namely: the legal declaration of a person's mind or wishes for the disposition of his/her property following death. |
| Yeoman | In English and early U.S. law, a freeholder, under the rank of a Gentleman; a man who owns his land. |
