Ancestry's Concise Genealogical Dictionary

Source Information

The words included in this guide may be found in apprentice, church, census, tax, land, naturalization, immigration, and medical records, as well as in deeds, probates, civil registrations, and poll books. the terms were collected over years of genealogical research from innumerable original records, as well as from other genealogical reference books such as The Source. The definitions were compiled and verified using several dictionaries and encyclopedias including the Oxford English Dictionary, Black's Law Dictionary, various foreign language dictionaries, and a nineteenth-century edition of Webster's, which helped greatly in determining precisely the meanings of dated terms at the time they were in use.

This is a concise, specialized dictionary. It is not meant to give all the meanings of any particular term but only those which are unusual or dated and that are most pertinent considering the term was likely encountered in one or another of the sources listed above.