By Kimberly Brown, Family Historian
This week we're continuing our explanations of basic genealogy terms and abbreviations, so you'll finally know what on earth an ahnentafel is!
. ahnentafel - a German word that translates to "ancestor table," and is a kind of pedigree chart with a specific numbering system
. FHL - the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is the largest genealogical library in the world; all the records, resources, and services there are available free of charge
. descendancy - instead of making a chart that begins with yourself and moves backward to your ancestors, you can start with an ancestor and work forward in time, displaying all his children and descendants on a descendancy chart
. SSDI stands for Social Security Death Index. Available on many genealogy sites, including FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com, the index lists the names of individuals whose deaths were reported to the Social Security Administration (meaning that they were receiving Social Security benefits when they died)
. land patent - the original land grant from a sovereign (whether it be a monarch or the federal government) to an individual
. deed - legal document used to transfer ownership of property
. marriage bond - a bond deposited to the court by a groom when he intended to marry to ensure that he didn't change his mind; if he did, he forfeited the bond
. compiled lineage - a report describing the life and vital events of your ancestral family, written as a narrative
. research report - a report describing the genealogical research process and how a genealogist conducted his or her research on a particular family
. family group record - unlike a pedigree chart, which shows multiple generations of a family, a family group record shows a nuclear family: husband, wife, and children
. DAR stands for Daughters of the American Revolution, a lineage society for women who can prove direct descent from an American Revolutionary War soldier.
. metes and bounds - the way land was surveyed in early America, using natural markers like trees, rivers, and rocks (this system has since been replaced by the more modern method of rectangular survey)