Genealogy Chat

In some very early baptisms I looked at today, it says e.g. James, de poch(ia) George Holden. The translation given at the head of these baptisms says "means purse". Eigh??? What have purses got to do with baptisms? Ive scoured every Latin dictionary I can find on line, none have anything like these words (which appear lots of times on this Register, sometimes abbreviated to just" poch." Any ideas, anyone? Im absolutely baffled.

I think it is of this parish: de parochia. There will be a stroke through the P or a wiggle above it that the transcriber has ignored, or in this case did not understand. There are several of my Coopers hiding on the IGI as COOPS Brenda

Thankyou Brenda, that makes sense! I was completely thrown by the "translation" at the top of this register, which included the information that "puer/a" means "pauper, or poor person"!!!!!!!!!!! Good heavens, I only did two years of Latin, but I know puer means boy and puera means girl! This information incidentally, was supplied to me from a "Professional Researcher" - the mind boggles! Fortunately I didnt pay for this, but someone did, and paid hard, too. Thanks once again. Cheers Marjorie

If they were a member of AGRA they ought to be reported. Sad, isn't it. Like the beautifully handwritten transcriptions for a Hampshire parish full of Cofsens. Everyone makes mistakes like that to start with, but professionals should surely know better. Brenda

Brenda The person who kindly sent me this research pays £70 a day! Some of the stuff is print-offs of the IGI ! I have questioned several important points in this research which do not agree with my old friend "Primary Source Documents". He is unmoved because he says his researcher is "very good". Anyone want ME to do some research for them? I charge only £60 a day!

I'll do it for £50!

It's horses for courses, isn't it, Marjorie? There's a document in the Norfolk Record Office that I had hoped to have seen by now. The way things are going, it'll be months if not years before I get my sticky little hands on it. But I would not dream of asking anyone to look at it for me because I want the thrill of anticipation, the look of it when it arrives: in a thick cardboard box, or tightly tied with tape. I want the feel of it, the smell of it, the sound of it as I flatten it with weights.... And after all that it probably won't justify all the hopes I've been pinning on it! But I do NOT want to surrender all that pleasure to anybody else, though I'm perfectly willing to share it when I've found it. Brenda

Brenda I know exactly what you mean! I saw a very old document, dated 1397, which may concern my broad family. It was a white-glove job, supervised - I was nearly sick with excitement and the feeling that I was touching the same piece of paper some 600 years after my ancestor had handled it - it made me cry!!!! It also gave me this peculiar feeling that we never really die, the people on that document had been dead for 600 years, yet I was reaching out to them and they were reaching out to me..must go, the men in white coats are coming for me!

Stop it! You're making me go all misty-eyed. I felt the same way when I read the actual words a gt gt gt grandfather spoke giving evidence in a settlement dispute, and also in another branch of the family, my gt gt gt grandmother speaking to her son, who was mentally disturbed, the afternoon before he committed a murder while insane. Their actual words! Too early for any photos to survive, but I have read their actual words!! They were illiterate and would not have been able to leave a writtten record, but I have their actual words!!! OK I'm off to check my medication now. nell