Happy Feet, Penguin Meat

Feet of Fines
Feet of fines started at the time of Richard I and continued to about 1830, and were essentially deeds transferring land. Mutual agreements put an end (finis) to contentious suits in the royal court. It also became a means of efficiently and safely transferring of land. Originally three copies of the transfer were made on one sheet of paper, top left for the querents, top right for the deforciants and the bottom (the foot) portion to remain with the court. The portions were then separated with uneven or jagged cuts to prevent forgeries. They are arranged by county, giving land transfers, sometimes names of relatives and locations. Sometimes fractions of property (1/3, 2/3, etc.) can reveal property given by will or administration, showing relationship to others mentioned in the feet of fines. A keyword search of ‘Feet of Fines’ in your family history library can produce a list of county records in England. Also, many records are now on the internet so a search for the same on your favorite search tool can yield results.
Querents were usually the party of a person or persons to whom the property was transferred to.
Deforciants were the party of a person or persons to whom the property was transferred from.

Word of the Week:
Hoffens = Feet

Apprenticeship for Dummies

Apprenticeship
Most apprenticeship was father to son or sons. Some pauper children had theirs paid for by the overseers of the poor in a parish. Others were paid for by a parent or guardian. Apprenticeship was usually for a term of seven years, though some chose to go for an additional specialty training for six months or more in a completely different town. Once the contract time was finished, the apprentice became a freeman, while some freeman paid for, inherited, or married into their position (see freeman or burgess rolls).
In England, there are some books for individual parishes, there are also the Inland Revenue Service apprentice records (1710-1774-1811) where the government charged a duty tax depending on the type of occupation, more for higher paying jobs. Not all apprentices are mentioned in the index, father to son and parish sponsored were exempt from this tax.
A keyword search for Inland Revenue in your family history catalog brings up these tax records. They can be useful, listing parent or guardian, occupation, location or in calculating the approximate age of the apprentice (twelve to fourteen years of age). Sometimes an apprentice would stay in the village of their training, which may have been a long distance from his or her place of birth.

Indenture is a contract, it is not servitude. It may be for apprenticeship, but could also be a mutual agreement for sharing land, supplying goods or any other contract like instrument.

Word of the Week:
Nebbe = Nose

Give Us Back Our Eleven Days

Julian to Gregorian
The orbital period of the Earth around the Sun is approximately 365.242 days, which is why we have leap-year. Adjusting the calender every four years, but it is still off by 11 minutes per year. Before our current calendar (Gregorian), Europeans used the Julian calendar. Despite having leap years, the Julian calendar gained a day about every 134 years.
Until 1752, in England, the legal year began on “Lady Day,” which was March 25th, the last day of the year being March 24th.
When England finally changed from Julian Calendar to Gregorian in 1752, the calendar was off by 11 days. In 1752 an Act of Parliament changed the beginning of the year to January 1st this is the present calendar that we use today. The 3rd of September became the 14th of September and the year ending became December 31st. France changed in 1582, Denmark and Norway changed in 1700, Sweden 1753. The last European country to change was Greece in 1923.
Some towns in England secretly adopted the new calendar in 1582, an example of this is Thornbury in Gloucester, where there may have been a few closet Catholics. This was a town that Queen Mary frequented often.
There were rumors of riots in England when they had lost their 11 days. “Give us back our eleven days” was repeated throughout the land. However, it was probably a tongue-in-cheek story told and retold in taverns and around the hearths.
Quakers did not like the use of pagan names in the calendar, so the months were numbered instead. An easy way of remembering these dates is using the Latin prefix of some of the month name’s viz. septem (seven), octo (eight), novem ( nine) and decem (ten).
A common notation for genealogists is to use the system (old style)/(new style), for example 1735/1736. However, the slash date was only rarely used in America and England before 1752 and is only used for clarity purposes. Technically, the legal year started March 25th.

Word of the Week:
Shrovetide = Three days before Ash Wednesday.

Marriage by Banns

For three successive sundays the Banns were published. This was commonly done by the priest pronouncing from the pulpit the names of the couple with their intentions of marriage. If the couple resided in the same parish, notice of their intention to marry was given to the parish clerk or priest. If they lived in different parishes, then the priests of both parishes were notified. If either or both of the persons were under age, the consent of their legal guardians was necessary. During the three-week waiting period, any person could state a reason why the marriage should not take place and was free to assert their objections. Reasons might be that at least one of the couple was under age and did not have the consent of a parent or a guardian; one of the couple was already engaged or married and still had a spouse living; or that the couple were too closely related (consanguinity). If an objection occurred then it was known as “forbidding the banns.”
This formality allowed both public notice and the duration of three to four weeks. If there was no “forbidding the banns,” a parish church in either parish could be selected for the ceremony, also it is more likely that the bride’s parish was more advantageous. The marriage was then performed at any opportune time after the third Sunday. Marriage by banns might give places of residence, place where ceremony took place, occupations and witnesses.

Word of the Week:
Mease = A meadow or field.

Bond, Marriage Bond

Marriage Licenses Bonds and Allegations

In England, a marriage by license consisted of three documents. These documents were obtained from the archbishop, bishop, archdeacon or a clergyman from a peculiar. It involved making a sworn statement or allegation that complied with canon law, a set of rules in the Book of Common Prayer that the couple were fully qualified for marriage. Forbidden were those of too close consanguinity of blood. Although first cousins were accepted by the Church of England, it was condemned by Quakers and Catholics (unless a dispensation was paid for). These allegations usually include the parish of residence and the place where the marriage was performed, but may also include age, occupation and parent names.

The marriage bond was a sworn statement by the groom and a bondsman (usually a friend or relative), and a bond fee was paid to ensure compliance.

Once all the legal conditions had been met, a license was issued. The groom would then present it to the clergyman who would perform the marriage ceremony.

Marriage index books can be found for most counties. Finding the original allegations, bonds and licenses might be a little more difficult. A keyword search in the catalog could bring up some good results. A caution should be noted that not all licenses produced marriages.

Word of the Week:
Plancher = A flat board (apparently they might have had some value in the seventeenth century, as seen in some wills.)

Stop Your Whining

Ancestral Quest has been my favorite genealogy program for years. It is compatible with and has all the features of PAF and an abundance of other properties, a wide variety of reports, charts and scrap-booking capabilities. It also has research manager, direct connection with Family Search, World Vital Records and Ancestry.com. What I like most about AQ is the ability to move about to various families and names in a rapid manner, since I’m working on about as many lines as a lounge lizard has to pick up the ladies.
Last week I reviewed three genealogy programs for Linux Operating System. So I figured that a good genealogy program was not available for Ubuntu. When I was a kid, my grandfather used to tell me “Stop your whining.”
This week I sucked in my bottom lip and tried a package called Wine (a Windows emulator) in conjunction with Ancestral Quest. First, I installed Wine, then I went to the cdrom directory in terminal and typed in ‘wine setup.exe’. Then I let Wine and Ancestral Quest do their thing. Testing the program produced no errors so far.

Word of the Week:
Wand = A portion of communal land, marked by corner sticks (wands).

Testing or Testing my Patience

My favorite genealogy program is Ancestral Quest; I have been using it since its inception. My spare computer has been turned into an Ubuntu operating system, which is Linux based. So I decided to evaluate different genealogy software programs on my Ubuntu machine:

Gramps is probably one of the best linux-based genealogy programs. It was a fairly easy install and opened up with my 6000+ gedcom file with no problems. It can produce some cool reports and has a nice look. Some graph reports (.dot), however did not show up properly. It also lacks the ability to move quickly around to various names and families.

Lifelines a text-based package which reminded me of an old 8088 software program. After download and installation, I soon found out it only runs in terminal. Then I tried entering my name and it took five minutes. This program is not even worth the effort it took to uninstall it.

GeneWeb is an html-based program. After installing the three packages geneweb, gwsetup and gwtb, I then converted my gedcom file in terminal to where? I don’t know. Two hours later, I still couldn’t bring up my database. I consider myself a bit of a geek, but this was a total waste of time. If anyone finds my genealogy database somewhere on the net, please let me know.

There might be other genealogy software for Linux systems that I haven’t heard of yet, please let me know if you are aware of any. As for the above three, Gramps is workable, but the other two programs are impractical.

Word of the Week:
Brandwithe: A fence around a well, used to prevent people and animals from falling into it.

Pyramid of Confusion

Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of English Probate Courts
In England the Anglican Church had jurisdiction over probate from 1537 to 1858. The highest ecclesiastical court was the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC). It had authority over all of England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, the colonies, foreign soldiers and mariners. The next level was the provincial courts, at the time of the early wills there were only two: Once again the PCC and the Prerogative Court of York (PCY). The PCY included the northern counties of Cheshire, Cumberland, Durham, Isle of Man, Lancashire, Northumberland, Nottinghamshire, Westmorland and Yorkshire. All the remaining counties in the south were under the jurisdiction of the PCC. The third level was the Diocese, Bishop or Episcopal jurisdiction, similar to county boundaries except some counties had more than one diocese and yet some dioceses included more than one county. The fourth level was the Archdeaconry, as the diocese was broken down further into smaller units. The fifth level was the Rural Deanery consisting of parish groups of twelve and more. And the lowest level was the Parish and Peculiars. As for parishes, most wills were proved in higher courts, but peculiars had certain rights not bound by some higher courts, many of them were the Dean and Chapter, Manor courts, Prebends, Chancellor, Sub-Dean, Succentor, Vicarial and various other titles.

If a testator owned land in different jurisdictions, then the probate was most likely certified in the court that included both jurisdictions. (Example: if the testator owned a messuage north of the Humber River and a farm south of Humber then the higher court of PCC would have authority over the said properties).

Word of the Week: Cordwainer is a shoemaker who worked with new leather, as opposed to a cobbler who made shoes generally from used materials.

Die Another Day

Nuncupative wills are usually deathbed type wills, statements orally declared before an acceptable number of witnesses, before the death of the testator. In the Act Books they are usually found with a header of "Nuncupative" or "Memorandum". Not all nuncupative wills are deathbed related, a good example of one is James Hall who died in 1637 who stated three times that he wanted a certain piece of land to go to his oldest son. Apparently he had signed over the land previously to his second wive’ s children. There was also a caveat filed by his second wife and another relative named as executrix.

A Caveat is where a creditor or family member requested of the courts that no action of a testator’s estate be taken without notification of the former parties. Caveats are also frequently entered in the Act Books, although there may also be a Caveat Book.

Word of the Week:
Masarde: A drinking cup originally made of maple wood, later made of silver or pewter.

Merry Christmas

Tradition is a very important part of genealogy. At our family, we show up at somebody's house at about 10:00 AM Christmas morning. We then proceed to make pigs of ourselves eating appleskivers, little round golf-ball shaped pancakes of Scandinavian cuisine. My father started this tradition from an old family recipe. Recipes can be handed down through many generations. What our ancestors ate and tasted is just as important as a good picture, don't let them be lost. Have someone gather all the family recipes and put them in a book.

Word of the week:
Æbelskiver (Danish), Ebelskiver (Norwegian), Äppleskiver (Swedish): A round pancake filled with apple pieces, butter, powdered sugar and other goodies.

Obscure Probate Record

Probate Accounts
Probate Accounts are financial records of disbursement of assets after someone has died whether intestate or with last will and testament. It usually lists creditors and debtors of the decease, and sometimes the heirs and other relatives.
England and Wales have two volumes of indexes in the British Record Series, A-J, Vol. 112 and K-Z, Vol. 113. In the Family History Library in Salt Lake City they are listed as cat# 942 B4b v.112, 113, they are also listed in Google books (search for “British Record Series” “probate accounts”) however they are only listed and not available for full view. Most of the names in these two indexes are mainly in Kent and Lincolnshire but are scattered throughout England and Wales, with only two from Rutland and none from Westmorland. The years range from 1521 to 1851, with the majority in the middle between the years of 1581 and 1701. The actual records are all filmed and referenced in the indexes.
Sometimes this is the only record for a certain person and can be a great source of information.

Word of the Week:
Bink: a bench

What Will Happen to the Kids?

Guardianship over minors
Curations and tuitions allowed minors to have adequate room, food, drink, clothes and education during their minorities, when one or both of the parents had deceased.
A curation arises primarily for male children between the ages of 14 to 21 and for female children between the ages of 12 to 21.
A tuition arises for children younger than the age of curation; there is some overlap of ages.
Curations and tuitions were filled out on individual papers, sometimes found mixed in with original wills and administration boxes. Some were then submitted to the Act Books. A few courts maintained separate boxes for the curations and tuitions.
If you’re lucky enough to find a curation or tuition, it can indicate approximate age, guardianship or apprenticeship. Many times a curation or tuition was not needed as the widow or relict was given default custody. But as in the case where the widow remarried, a Bond of Tuition or Curation was sometimes issued to protect the assets and welfare of the child or children.

Word of the week:
Codware: pillowcases

Last Will and Testament

Wills, Administrations, Codicils and Sentences

Searching of probate records are an essential part of genealogical research. No research is complete till thoroughly perusing one of the best sources available. Many dead end lines have continued, through the stumbling block of the Commonwealth time period and through the beginning boundary of the parish records and Bishop’s Transcripts. Most lines couldn’t possibly go beyond 1550 if not for probate records.

Will and Testament
In medieval times a will was the legal statement of a person pertaining to the disbursement of land, real estate or land interests, while a testament was related to the disposition of movable property, goods and chattels. Gradually they were combined, but even in the sixteen hundreds some were still separate documents.

Administration or Admons
Administrations are documents relating to a will or an intestate person (one who has left no will), naming the administrator or administrators of the estate or goods of the deceased. The probate court would grant Letters of Administration or Administrative Bonds to the testator’s executors or as in intestate to next-of-kin, friend or principal creditor. The Bonds or Letters of Administration were then entered into an Act Book.

Codicil
A codicil is an addition or supplement to a will adding to, taking from or an alteration of the provisions.

Sentence
A sentence is a decree or judgment pertaining to a will or administration.

Word of the Week:
Messuage: A parcel of land with a cottage or dwelling house and all adjoining buildings.

Genealogical Mayhem

Solving Inconsistencies

All facts from previous researchers should be checked for inconsistencies and errors. Some will eventually be found, conflicting statements, events out of place or time. For example marriages when one of the couple is 7 years old or a women having children at the age of 57. People from Chicago, New Jersey, USA (maybe there is a Chicago in New Jersey?) or born in New England in the fifteen hundreds. Fixing and repairing these errors are crucial to your own credibility as a genealogical researcher. When solving these errors with facts and sources, new information and knowledge can be revealed sometimes leading to a previous unknown ancestor or occasionally developing a feeling of friendship toward your ancestor.
Some genealogical programs will find many of these errors in their lists or custom list reports. Another way is to list people by location instead of by name. Seeing all the places together can sometimes show differences in spelling or wrong counties, etc.. Go through the sources (if any?) listed by the previous researcher, don’t spend too much time because in 10 generations you have over 2000 ancestors. Work mainly on the ones that have obvious errors.

Unconvincing the Convinced

Don’t argue with your relatives, gather your facts and evidences put it on a CD and send it in the mail. Let them read it on their own. If they still don’t accept it, well, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink”. You might consider publishing your results on the internet, listing all your sources.

Word of the week:

Quie, Quay, Quye: A young heifer.