Genealogy records glossary
What the words on census returns, death certificates, wills, and deeds actually meant. Every term links to a full explanation with era, context, and related terms.
Archaic occupations
Job titles from census returns, directories, and parish registers that no longer mean much on sight: what the work actually was, and when the trade appears.
A
- accoucheur a male midwife or early obstetrician
- ag lab the census abbreviation for agricultural labourer
- ale-conner a town officer who tested ale before it could be sold
- alewife a woman who brewed and sold ale from her own house
B
- badger a licensed dealer who carried corn and food between markets
- banksman the man who ran the top of a mine shaft
- barber-surgeon a barber who also pulled teeth, set bones, and let blood
- baxter an old northern and Scottish word for a baker
- beadle a parish officer who kept order for church and vestry
- besom maker a maker of birch-twig brooms
- bodger an itinerant wood-turner who made chair parts in the woods
- bowyer a maker of longbows
- brazier a craftsman who worked in brass
- brewster a brewer, originally a female one
C
- carman a town carrier who moved goods by cart
- carter a man who hauled goods by horse and cart
- chandler a candle maker, later a general dealer in provisions
- chapman a travelling dealer who sold small goods door to door
- charwoman a woman hired by the day to clean other households
- chirurgeon the old spelling of surgeon
- clogger a maker of wooden-soled clogs
- cobbler a shoe mender, as distinct from a shoemaker
- collier a coal miner, or earlier a charcoal burner or coal shipper
- compositor a printer who set type by hand, letter by letter
- cooper a maker of barrels, casks, and tubs
- cordwainer a shoemaker who made new shoes from new leather
- costermonger a street seller of fruit and vegetables from a barrow
- cottar a smallholder who paid for his cottage in labour
- crofter a Highland smallholder working a croft
- crossing sweeper a street worker who swept a path across muddy roads for tips
- currier a finisher who dressed tanned leather until it was usable
- cutler a maker and sharpener of knives and blades
D
F
- farrier a smith who shod horses and doctored them
- fellmonger a dealer in sheepskins who stripped the wool from hides
- fettler a cleaner and sharpener of mill machinery or metal castings
- flesher the Scottish word for a butcher
- fletcher a maker of arrows
- fuller a cloth worker who cleaned and thickened woven wool
G
- ganger the foreman of a work gang
- gauger an excise officer who measured casks for duty
- girdler a maker of belts and girdles
- glover a maker of gloves
- gong farmer the man who emptied privies and cesspits by night
H
- haberdasher a seller of sewing wares: thread, ribbon, buttons, pins
- hayward the parish officer who minded hedges and strays
- hellier a roof tiler or slater
- hewer the miner who actually cut coal at the face
- higgler an itinerant dealer who traded farm produce for shop goods
- hind a farm servant hired by the year, northern England and Scotland
- hosier a maker or seller of stockings and knitwear
- huckster a small-scale street or market seller, very often a woman
- hurdle maker a woodsman who wove portable wattle fencing
- husbandman a small tenant farmer, below a yeoman
J
- japanner a worker who applied glossy black lacquer to metal and wood
- journeyman a trained craftsman working for wages, not yet a master
K
- knacker a dealer who bought and slaughtered worn-out horses
- knocker-upper a human alarm clock who tapped on windows before dawn
L
- lamplighter the man who lit and doused the street lamps
- lengthsman the man responsible for one length of road, canal, or track
- lighterman a boatman who moved cargo on barges in port
- litster a dyer, in northern and Scottish records
- lorimer a maker of bits, spurs, and harness metalwork
M
- maltster a maker of malt for brewing
- mantua maker a dressmaker, from the mantua gown
- mariner a seaman, as records write it; master mariner means captain
- mealman a dealer in meal and flour
- mercer a dealer in fine cloth, especially silks
- milliner a maker and seller of women's hats and trimmings
- millwright the engineer who built and repaired mill machinery
- mole catcher a man paid by parish or farm to clear moles
- monthly nurse a nurse who lived in for the month after a birth
- mudlark a scavenger who combed the river foreshore at low tide
N
O
- ostler the stable man at an inn
- overlooker a mill foreman in charge of machines and hands
P
- parish clerk the lay officer who kept the registers and led responses
- patten maker a maker of wooden overshoes that lifted wearers above the mud
- paviour a layer of paving stones and setts
- pewterer a caster of pewter plates, mugs, and spoons
- piecer a mill child who joined broken threads on the machines
- pinder the officer who impounded stray animals in the pinfold
- platelayer a railway worker who laid and maintained the track
- puddler an ironworker who stirred molten iron into wrought iron
R
- rag and bone man a street collector of household castoffs
- rat catcher a vermin killer for hire
S
- saggar maker a potter who made the fireclay boxes that protected ware in the kiln
- sawyer a man who sawed timber over a saw pit
- scavenger the parish street cleaner
- scrivener a professional penman who drafted documents and deeds
- scullery maid the most junior kitchen servant
- searcher a woman appointed to examine the dead and report the cause
- sempstress a woman who sewed plain work for pay
- sexton the church officer who dug graves and rang the bells
- shipwright a builder of wooden ships
- souter the Scots word for a shoemaker
- stationer a dealer in paper, books, and writing wares
- staymaker a maker of stays, the corsets of the period
- stockinger a framework knitter making stockings at home
- swineherd a keeper of the village pigs
T
- tanner a leather maker who turned raw hides into leather
- tapster the person who drew and served the ale
- tenter a machine minder in a mill
- thatcher a roofer working in straw and reed
- thrower the potter who shaped ware on the wheel
- throwster a silk worker who twisted raw silk into thread
- tide waiter a customs officer who boarded ships as they came in on the tide
- tinker a travelling mender of pots and pans
- town crier the bellman who shouted the news and notices
- tucker a fuller of cloth, in the West Country
- turner a craftsman who shaped wood on a lathe
V
- victualler a seller of food and drink; licensed victualler means publican
W
- waggoner the driver of a heavy horse-drawn wagon
- wainwright a builder of wagons and carts
- walker a fuller of cloth, in northern records
- warrener the keeper of a commercial rabbit warren
- washerwoman a laundress who took in washing
- watchman the night patrol before there were police
- waterman a boatman who carried passengers on the river
- webster a weaver, originally a female one
- wet nurse a woman paid to breastfeed another family's infant
- wheelwright a maker of wooden wheels
- whitesmith a metalworker in tin and finished bright work
- whitster a bleacher of cloth and linen
- woolcomber a worker who combed wool straight for worsted spinning
- woolstapler a dealer who graded and sold wool
Y
- yeoman a farmer who owned or securely held his own land
Historical causes of death
Causes as doctors, clerks, and parish searchers actually wrote them, each with a carefully hedged modern reading. Historical explanation, not medical advice.
A
B
- bilious fever fever with vomiting and jaundice, often typhoid or malaria
- bloody flux dysentery: severe diarrhea with blood
- brain fever fever with delirium, often meningitis or encephalitis
- Bright's disease chronic kidney disease, named for the doctor who described it
C
- canker a spreading ulcer or sore, sometimes gangrenous, sometimes cancer
- catarrh heavy inflammation of nose and chest; epidemic catarrh meant influenza
- childbed fever infection after childbirth, puerperal sepsis in modern terms
- chin cough whooping cough, in its older name
- chlorosis the green sickness: severe anemia in young women
- cholera infantum deadly summer diarrhea of infants
- cholera morbus acute vomiting and diarrhea, not the epidemic cholera
- congestion of the brain a catch-all for stroke, coma, and sudden brain deaths
- consumption a wasting disease of the lungs, tuberculosis in modern terms
- convulsions fatal seizures, the commonest infant cause on old registers
- croup a child choking from an inflamed windpipe, often diphtheria
D
E
- enteric fever typhoid, in the language of later certificates
- erysipelas a spreading fiery skin infection, called St Anthony's fire
F
- falling sickness epilepsy, in its oldest record name
- flooding fatal bleeding in childbirth or miscarriage
- found drowned the open verdict written over bodies taken from the water
G
- general paralysis of the insane a fatal asylum diagnosis, late-stage syphilis in modern terms
- gravel kidney and bladder stones, felt as sand and stone
- griping in the guts deadly bowel cramps, in the words of the old bills of mortality
- grippe influenza, under its French name
H
- hectic fever the flushed, wasting fever of chronic disease
- hydrophobia rabies, named for its terror of swallowing water
I
- imposthume an internal abscess or gathering of matter
- inanition death from want of nourishment, mostly in infants
- intemperance chronic drink given as the cause of death
L
- lockjaw tetanus, named for its first fatal symptom
- lues venerea syphilis, in the Latin of the certifiers
- lung fever pneumonia, in the words of older certificates
M
- marasmus wasting away of an infant, severe malnutrition in modern terms
- milk leg a painful swollen white leg after childbirth
- milk sickness poisoning from the milk of cows that ate white snakeroot
- miner's asthma black lung: dust-choked lungs from years underground
- misadventure the inquest verdict for accidental death
- mortification gangrene: flesh dying and blackening around a wound
O
- overlaid an infant smothered in the parents' bed
P
- palsy paralysis or uncontrollable trembling
- phthisis the Greek medical name for consumption of the lungs
- pleurisy stabbing chest inflammation, deadly when it filled the chest
- puerperal convulsions fatal seizures of late pregnancy and birth, eclampsia today
- putrid sore throat diphtheria: a membrane closing a child's throat
Q
- quinsy an abscess behind the tonsils that could close the throat
R
- rising of the lights a choking death, in the strangest phrase of the old bills
S
- scarlatina scarlet fever, the great childhood killer of the 1800s
- scirrhus a hard tumour, usually cancer in modern terms
- scrofula the king's evil: tuberculous swellings of the neck glands
- senile decay old age written as a medical cause
- ship fever typhus, bred in the crowded holds of emigrant ships
- softening of the brain a fading of mind and body, stroke damage or dementia
- spotted fever a rash fever: typhus, or epidemic meningitis
- St Vitus dance uncontrollable jerking movements, mostly in children
- surfeit death blamed on an excess of food or drink
- syncope sudden failure of the heart's action
T
V
- visitation of God the inquest formula for sudden natural death
W
- white swelling a pale, swollen, wasting joint, tuberculosis of the bone
- worm fever a child's fever blamed on intestinal worms
Old legal and record terms
The Latin, the shorthand, and the formulas that fill wills, deeds, probate files, and registers, and what each one tells you about the family in the record.
A
- administrator the person a court appointed to settle an estate with no will
- appurtenances everything that legally went along with a property
B
- banns the public notice of a marriage, read three Sundays running
- base born the register's phrase for a child born outside marriage
- bastardy bond a bond making a child's father pay so the parish would not
- bounty land public land granted for military service
C
- chattels movable belongings, as in goods and chattels
- codicil a signed afterthought that changes an existing will
- consideration the price or value exchanged in a deed
- copyhold land held by copy of the manor court roll
- cousin in old wills, almost any relative beyond the immediate family
- coverture the rule that merged a wife's legal identity into her husband's
- curtesy a widower's life interest in his late wife's land
D
- declaration of intention the first papers an immigrant filed toward citizenship
- demise in a deed, a lease or transfer, nothing to do with death
- devise a gift of land by will, as opposed to a bequest of goods
- ditto the do. mark that repeats the line above
- dower the widow's third: her life share of her husband's land
E
F
- fee simple full ownership of land, inheritable without restriction
- fee tail entailed land locked to the bodily heirs of one line
- feme covert the law's name for a married woman
- feme sole a woman with full legal capacity: single, widowed, or trading alone
G
- gentleman a status claim: living on means, not manual work
- grantor and grantee the seller and the buyer named in a deed
H
- headright colonial land earned by paying someone's passage
- hereditaments everything capable of being inherited, in deed boilerplate
I
- indenture a contract cut in two along a wavy line, one half per party
- infant in legal records, anyone under twenty-one
- inquest the coroner's inquiry into a sudden or unexplained death
- instant and ultimo inst. and ult.: this month and last month, in record dates
- intestate died without a valid will
- inventory the sworn room-by-room valuation of a dead person's goods
- issue children and descendants, in the language of wills
J
- jointure property settled on a wife for her widowhood, in place of dower
- junior and senior labels telling two same-named people apart, not proof of father and son
L
- land patent the first deed, from government to first private owner
- legatee a person left a legacy of money or goods in a will
- letters of administration the court's authority to settle an estate that has no will
M
- manumission the legal act of freeing an enslaved person
- marriage bond a financial guarantee that a marriage had no legal barrier
- messuage a dwelling house with its outbuildings and yard
- metes and bounds boundary-by-boundary land description: from the oak, thence north
- moiety a half share of a property or estate
N
- natural child a child of the body, very often born outside marriage
- now wife the wills phrase my now wife, a hint but not proof of remarriage
- nuncupative will a spoken deathbed will, written down by witnesses after
O
- Old Style and New Style dates before and after the 1752 calendar change
- orphan in old records, a child whose father had died; the mother might live
P
- perch a land measure, also called rod or pole: five and a half yards
- primogeniture the default rule sending land to the eldest son
Q
- quitclaim a deed releasing whatever claim the signer had, promising nothing
R
- regnal years dates counted by the year of the monarch's reign
- relict the widow or widower of the person named
S
- section, township, and range the grid coordinates of American public-land surveys
- seisin legal possession of land: what seized of means in a deed
- settlement examination the poor-law interrogation that recorded a pauper's life story
- spinster a never-married woman, at any age
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