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can you read the occupation on the marriage

Discussion in 'General Genealogical Queries' started by auscrafts, May 16, 2017.

  1. auscrafts

    auscrafts LostCousins Member

    just got this email back from Roscommon I can't make out what the womans occupation is it looks like familer
    I'm wondering if it's another term for a nursemaid .
     

    Attached Files:

  2. Pauline

    Pauline LostCousins Megastar

    I think it says "fil familia", but what exactly is meant by that, I'm not sure. Familia is Latin and can mean family, household or community etc, and fil is presumably short for the Latin filia, meaning girl or daughter.

    So maybe some kind of "household girl"? Maybe someone employed to do everything and anything in the house, including cooking, cleaning and looking after the children?

    Not very precise, I'm afraid, but I can't find anything more specific.
     
  3. auscrafts

    auscrafts LostCousins Member

    Thanks for trying ,family seems to be the nearest translation as the groom was a gamekeeper it's highly likely she was a maid in the big house
     
  4. Heather

    Heather LostCousins Member

    I too think it says "fil familia" and according to my Latin dictionary "fil" as Pauline said is short for filia, daughter. "Familia" has several meanings:------ "domestics, slaves of a household, family property, estate, family, house, school, sect" as you can see quite a variety of meanings, take your pick.
     
  5. Rhian

    Rhian LostCousins Member

    Just highlights the point that genealogy promotes learning Latin, as well as several other subjects like geography, the law and social history. I agree she was probably a maid in the same house as her husband was gamekeeper
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
  6. Bob Spiers

    Bob Spiers LostCousins Superstar

    My Latin dictionary suggests 'fil' as a short form for 'filia' (daughter) or 'filius' (son). So shows both 'filia familia' as daughter of the family and 'filius familia' as son of the family.
     
  7. auscrafts

    auscrafts LostCousins Member

    So we'll all agree she seems to have been house maid in the main house
     
  8. SuzanneD

    SuzanneD LostCousins Star

    Or alternatively she was an unmarried daughter still living at home with her parents? The other interpretations seem a bit over-complicated - why would the priest or the bride herself use an obscure Latin term to describe a housemaid? Modern and medieval 'church Latin' doesn't always have the same range of meaning as classical Latin.
     
  9. Heather

    Heather LostCousins Member

    It does seem a bit odd Suzanne but we must take into account that this phrase is in the "occupation" column.
     
  10. auscrafts

    auscrafts LostCousins Member

    I'm not completely convinced I have the correct Mary as her parents were born ,died and were married in Dungannon but as her father had been a soldier , the children were born all over the place Mary being born in Lincolnshire UK ,it's been a long haul finding the BMDs and the spelling of the surname is another headache depending on how it sounded to the registrar
     
  11. jorghes

    jorghes LostCousins Superstar

    I have one of these - one of my paternal 3x great grandfathers was in the military (39th Cameron Highlanders) so he and his wife married in Edinburgh, but his son was born in Portsmouth, his daughter in Elham, Kent. After he died in India, his wife remarried in Edinburgh.

    Mary's birth register might help to pin-point where she was born - perhaps her father was stationed at a barracks in Lincolnshire. It would be a little strange to have her listed as "daughter of the family" or whatever if her father was a military man! Perhaps it is as simple as you haven't found the correct Mary!
     
  12. auscrafts

    auscrafts LostCousins Member

    her father was invalided out of the army after the crimean war Mary was baptised at St Botolphs in 1836 to early for a certificate,but I have a sisters certificate for 1843 in Mansfield .One of the daughters(Ann Jane) married in Edinburgh to another soldier (he died in the crimean)their son was born in Birmingham 1854 Thats when they all went back to the Dungnnon area
     

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