Old legal and record term medieval-1900s
What does inquest mean in old court records?
An inquest was the coroner's inquiry, with a jury viewing the body, into any sudden, violent, or unexplained death. Where a burial register notes an inquest, chase the coroner's file and the local newspaper; between them the whole event usually unfolds. You will meet it in court records and parish registers, mostly medieval-1900s.
Where it appears: court records, parish registers.
Hit a term like this in a record you are working on? AncestorIQ reads the record and explains terms like this in context. See how Deep Research works. Stuck on the ancestor as well as the wording? Start with how to work a genealogy brick wall.
Related terms
Browse the full genealogy records glossary for more occupations, causes of death, and legal terms.
FAQs
Where will I see inquest in the records?+
Mostly in court records and parish registers, medieval-1900s. Clerks abbreviated freely and spelling wandered, so expect variant wordings around it.
Do these old terms still matter for family history?+
Yes, a single word can settle a relationship. Relict names a widow, et ux hides an unnamed wife, natural son points at a parent. The words are dry, but what they encode about a family is not.
Where do these definitions come from?+
They are drawn from period dictionaries, government archive glossaries, and standard genealogy references, cross-checked against each other; provenance is documented with the dataset. Inside AncestorIQ, Deep Research reads the record itself and explains terms like this in context, against your ancestor's own document.
Stop translating old records by hand.
AncestorIQ reads the record and explains terms like this in context: the occupation column, the cause on the certificate, the clause in the will. Add one ancestor and let Deep Research do the reading.
No credit card needed. Your tree stays yours.
