A

• Accomptant - accountant
• Administrator - In older records, this is a person appointed to settle estate of the deceased
• Affirmation - a solemn statement, equivalent by law to an oath, but without religious significance or reference to a Supreme Being.
• Ague - recurring fever or chills of malaria
• Amanuensis - secretary
• Amerced - fined.
• Apoplexy - stroke
• Artificer - soldier mechanic

• Banns - publication or posting of the announcement of a coming marriage, a period of time before the actual marriage to allow advance notice to those that might have reason to protest. In most churches the banns were read aloud on three successive Sundays.
• Bilious Fever - fever caused by liver disorder.
• Bloody Flux - dysentery.

C

• Calavances - probably a corruption of Spanish "garbanzos," dried beans or pease used as army-stores.
• Carner - granary keeper.
• Chattels - articles of personal property
• Circa - about (for example c. 1790)
• Codicil - an addition or supplement to a will
• Consort - spouse
• Consumption - tuberculosis

• de bonis non - concerning goods not settled by preceding administrator
• Deponent - the person who takes an oath or affirmation.
• Deposition - a written testimony by a witness for use in court in his or her absence.
• Dropsy - swelling of tissue, congestive heart failure.

E

• Eodem Die - Old date: to the same place: or same point
• Essoyned - .
• Et al - "and others"
• Et ux - "and wife"
• Executor - appointed by testator (deceased) to carry out the direction and request of his will

• Farrier - horse doctor, blacksmith who shoes horses.

G

• Grantor/grantee or direct/reverse or indirect - seller/buyer

• Hundreds (Hds.) - an old English term for land division equaling a land area of less than a county or shire but larger than a town or parish.

I

• in carads - encourages
• Inventory - detailed list of articles or property with estimated value

K

L

• Letters of Administration (LTA) - formal instrument appointing an administrator to settle an estate.
• Locus Sigili - in the place of the seal.

• Nuncupative - description of a will orally created, not written

O

P

• Palatine - These were inhabitants of the Palatinate of the Rhine, which was ravaged and almost depopulated by the French armies in 1688, and the following years. For further details see page 10 of the preface in Volume 27
• Perch - land measurement equaling 16.5 feet
• Plant shavers - tobacco cutters
• Probate - the act or process of proving a will
• Prothonotary - Clerk of the Court
• Prout petitor - as is asked
• prt pet - contraction for "prout petitur" which means "as is asked"

Q

R

• Relict - widow or widower
• Renunciation - act by which a person abandons rights to serve as an executor, etc.

S

T

• Testator - one who dies leaving a will
• Testamento -  will
• Testatum Fi Fa - a writ for Sheriff to levy judgment against debtor
• Tomusts and woull - ?

U

• Ut Supra - and above.

V

• Voucher - receipt, acquittance or release which serves as evidence of payment or discharge or a debt.

W

X

Y

Z

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