Genealogy Chat

Many of us would have seen strange phrases whilst researching our family trees and for those new to GR I have now combined my previous threads. Visitations can be found by visiting www.uk-genealogy(.)org(.)uk/england/ then click on Cornwall then go to the bottom of the next page where you will see Heralds' Visitations. John

The easy way to get to Visitations is to choose from Contents list - Heralds' Visitations which reveals a list of Visitations which can be viewed and some do have an index The Visitations of Cornwall 1530, 1573, 1620 The Visitation of the County of Devon in the year 1564 The Visitations of Devon comprising the Herald's Visitation of 1531, 1564 and 1620 The Visitation of Dorsetshire, 1623 The Visitation of Gloucestershire 1623 The Visitation of the Country of Somersert in the year 1623 The Visitation of Wiltshire 1623 The Visitation of the Country of Worcester The Visitation of Hertfordshire 1572 and 1634 The Visitation of London, 1563, 1589 and 1613 The Visitation of Kent 1619 Also on the contents list if you select England or whatever will reveal Counties and by selecting the one you are interested in for example Cornwall reveals a list of towns and parishes one can then select a place to see a parish record revealing a marriage. A point to note the compiler has not scanned all marriage records Wondering what 'visitation' means, any of the following describes 'visitation' - An annoying or frustrating or catastrophic event; Any disaster or catastrophe; An official visit for inspection or supervision In the case of The Visitations of Cornwall for example this description from The Concise Oxford Dictionary would best sums it up - 'official visit of inspection or the like, esp. bishop's examination of the churches of his diocese; (colloq.) unduly protacted visit or social call; boarding of vessel belonging to another State to learn her character and purpose.' The different journals, I suppose one would call them, contains families and offspring - births, marriages & burials. The strange phrases in the Visitations are Middle English below are some which appeared on my families pages, I am grateful to Cornish Studies Library for their translation. MOIETY - is a Middle English word for one of two equal parts. ENFEOFFMENT is again Middle English, it means to invest with a fief or fee (when talking of an investment of land), and is a kind of trust in which land is held by trustees on behalf of its owner. PRIMOGENITUS is Latin for firstborn. ESCHAr is an abbreviation of ESCHEATOR which means an officer to take notice of escheatsw (confiscations of land). FCODARIC is FEODARY - one who held property under the feudal service. IN P'OCHIA DE - in the parish of And so if you are reading something like - 'seized of a moiety of' means in possession of a half-share of; 'seized in (place) by deed of enfeoffment' this means put in possession of (a particular place), by deed of eneoffment (see description); 'fil. primogenitus escha & feodaric to Prince Charles' - first-born son who is the officer to take notice of escheats (see description) and feodary (see description).

Hi John, Many thanks for the info, I've copied it so I can study it fully later . Do hope you and yours are well, Kaye.