Latin words to recognise
Do not be in awe of old registers written in Latin. There are only a limited number of words to learn to recognise. Something that looks like ‘baptize’ is a baptism, something that looks like ‘matrimony’ is a marriage, and something that looks like ‘mortus’ is a burial. There are a few more, but you will soon get the hang of it.
Baptism words
- filius
- son of
— similarly, male names often end in ‘us’ - filia
- daughter of
— similarly, female names often end in ‘a’ - et
- and
- baptizavi
- I have baptised
- natus
- born (male)
- nata
- born (female)
- gemelli, gemini
- twins
- trigemini
- triplets
Marriage words
- nupsit
- married
- matrimonium
- matrimony
- licentiam
- by licence
- bannum
- by banns
Burial words
- mortus
- died
- sepultavi
- I have buried
- dormit
- sleeping
- corpus
- the body
General words
- parochia
- parish
- in comitatu
- in the county of
(compare with ‘community’) - in agro
- in the county of
(literally ‘in the field of’) - ibidem
- of the same place
- extraneus
- a stranger
Online resources
The following online resources are all suggestions made by our transcribers.
Guides
For help with Latin, there is a useful guide on the FamilySearch website, a Latin genealogical word list [and guide to useage].
This list of Oxford Alumni has helped me with some tricky Latin titles.
Dictionaries
I’ve suggested this online Latin dictionary before — it’s the most user-friendly one I’ve found.
Here’s another Latin dictionary.
And yet another Latin dictionary, which is more recent. This one is only Latin to English but seems more comprehensive.
Abbreviations
This has a look at Latin abbreviations in some depth.
This document is a good one for Latin abbreviations, very comprehensive, but a bit esoteric? It was recommended by someone quite a while ago, but I have found it useful.