Glossary Of Legal Terms For Genealogists

Glossary Of Legal Terms For Genealogists

Town and county courthouse records are valuable sources which can provide genealogists with the important and basic information needed to enhance their genealogical research. The legal terminology used in birth, marriage, death certificates, deeds, wills, and other related miscellaneous documents has changed little over time, but most of these documents are worded in such ways that the language is seldom part of your everyday vocabulary. Most people need a lawyer or para-legal to translate these legal documents into normal English. In an effort to help researchers overcome some of these problems, the following brief glossary of legal terms has been designed to cover the legal terms contained in the more common legal documents.

AB NEPOS: Great-Great-Grandson.

AB NEPTIS: Great-Great-Granddaughter.

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. See also INTESTATE.

AFFIDAVIT: Written and signed statement sworn in front of a court officer.

ASSIGNEE: The person to whom a privilege or some property is signed over by the court.

ASSIGNOR: The person who signs over the right or property to another party.

BEQUEST: A legacy, usually a gift of real estate by will.

BOUNTY LAND: Public land given by the government to induce young men to join the military. Was applicable for soldiers during the period prior to the Civil War.

BOUNTY LAND WARRANT: Gift of bounty land due to a person entitled by military service, or to his heirs or assigns.

CANON LAW: Laws of the church.

CODICIL: Supplemental details of a will.

COLLATERAL ANCESTOR: An ancestor not in the direct line of ascent, but coming from the same ancestral family (brother or sister).

CONNUBIUM: Marriage.

CONSANGUINITY: Blood relationship.

DECEDENT: The deceased.

DEED: Document signed, sealed, and delivered according to law and conveying title to real property.

DENIZEN: Foreigner permitted certain limited rights of citizenship.

DEPOSITION: Written testimony by a witness for use in court in his or her absence.

DESCENDANT: An immediate or remote offspring.

DEVISE: To transmit property by will to a designated person.

DEVISEE: The person to whom a devise is made.

DIRECT HEIR: One who is in an individual's direct line of ascent or descent.

DOWER: The part of interest of a deceased man's real estate allotted by law to his surviving widow.

D.S.P.: died sine prole--without offspring.

ESCHEAT: Property reverted to the state when no legal heirs or claimants exist.

ESTATE: The whole of one's possessions; especially all the property left by a deceased person.

ET UX; ET UXOR: And Wife.

EXECUTOR: The person named in the will and appointed by the court to carry out the provisions of the will.

EXECUTRIX: The term for a female who serves in the capacity of an executor.

FEE SIMPLE: An estate of land of which the inheritor has unqualified ownership and power of disposition.

FEE TAIL: An estate of land limited in inheritance to a specific individual, group, or class of heirs.

FREEHOLDER: One who holds land by fee simple. In colonial times, a freeholder had the right to vote and hold public office.

GRANT: To transfer property by a deed.

GRANTEE: One to whom a grant is made.

GRANTOR: One who transfers the title to property.

GUARDIAN: An appointee of the court who cares for the property and rights of a minor or of someone incapable of handling his or her own affairs.

HEIR: Person who inherits, or is entitled by law or the terms of a will to inherit, the estate of another.

HOLOGRAPHIC WILL: Document written entirely by the hand of the person whose signature it bears.

IMPRIMIS: In the first place.

INDENTURE: Deed, contract, or sealed agreement executed between two or more parties; a contract by which a person is bound over for services for a specified period stipulated in the contract.

INFANT: Minor.

INTESTATE: Having made no legal will; not disposed of by legal will.

INVENTORY: List of goods in the estate of a deceased person.

KINDRED: Group of blood-related persons.

LEGACY: Money or property bequeathed to someone by will.

LINEAL DESCENDANT: Being in the direct line of descent from an ancestor.

NATURALIZE: To grant full citizenship to one of foreign birth.

NONCUPATIVE WILL: An oral will declared by the deceased before dying, in the presence of witnesses, and transcribed by another. Common among soldiers on the field of battle.

NOTARY: Person officially authorized to draw up or attest to contracts, wills, deeds, or similar documents, to protest bills of exchange.

OBITUARY: Notice that an individual person has died.

PERSONAL PROPERTY: Property other than land.

PER STIRPES: Method of dividing an estate so that children act as a group, rather than individually, taking what their deceased ancestor was entitled to.

POSTHUMOUS: Any event occuring after death.

PRIMOGENITURE: The right of the eldest child (usually the son) to inherit the estate of both parents.

PROBATE: Legal establishment of the validity of a will.

RELICT: The widow or widower.

SEPULCHERED: Buried.

SIBLING: Brother or sister.

SPOUSE: Husband or wife.

TESTAMENT: The disposition of one's personal property by will.

TESTATE: Having made or left a valid will.

TESTATOR: Man who died leaving a valid will.

TESTATRIX: Woman who died leaving a valid will.

TRUSTEE: Person or agent holding the legal title to property.

WILL: The legal document containing the statement of a person's wishes regarding the disposal of his or her property after death.

Compiled by Bryan L. Mulcahy, Reference Librarian, Ft. Myers-Lee County Library, 10/19/98.