C genealogical glossary terms: Difference between revisions

*A book containing information about Jewish circumcisions. They include the Hebrew given name of the child, the date of circumcision in the Hebrew calendar, and the father's Hebrew given name. Also called Mohel books.

   

*A book used to record the names of people who had received the rights to citizenship. These books were frequently kept in Germany, where they were called Bürgerbücher or Bürgerlisten.

===== City census  =====

*Records, such as those for births and deaths, kept at a city level.

===== Civil case  =====

*An area covered by a Danish court. In Danish they are called herred and birke.

===== Civil government  =====

*An administrative division of a county in Ireland. Before the Reformation, the civil parish was an ecclesiastical division.

===== Civil registration office  =====

*A type of war in which two or more factions within the same country are at war with each other.

===== Claim  =====

*A settler who was part of a system that filed headright grants by time period. These particular settlers arrived in Texas from 1 January 1840 to 1 January 1842 and received headright land grants from the Republic of Texas.

===== Clergy directory  =====

*A list of the religious leaders in an area or religion.

===== Clerical register of souls, Norway  =====

*A roll kept in Sweden that lists all members of a parish, their place of residence, and their knowledge of catechism. The Evangelical Lutheran Church (Svenska Kyrkan) passed a law in 1686 requiring ministers to keep these records. Some records exist for as early as 1700, but most start much later. From about 1820, surveys are available for most parishes. In Swedish the word for clerical survey records is husförslängder.

===== Clerk  =====

*A government official who keeps the records of a court.

===== Clipping file  =====

*A file of obituaries and other articles cut out of newspapers.

===== Coast Guard  =====

*An emblem used on shields and other implements of war. Coats of arms, invented in the Holy Land during the Crusades, were introduced to England by Richard I. They were originally painted on the shields of Christian soldiers to identify them. Later, the Crown granted the right to use a coat of arms to an individual to identify him in battle. Then a coat of arms became a reward for performing a heroic deed, making a notable achievement, or holding a prominent position.

===== Codicil  =====

*A signed supplement, change, or addition to a will.

===== Cofradías, Spain  =====

*An organization in Spain whose membership was restricted to persons of hidalgo status (untitled Spanish nobility). In Spanish, the terms órdenes militares, confradías and confraternidades refer to military orders of chivalry that were established during the Crusades (1100–1450) to provide a fraternal religious life among the Spanish nobility. The orders were dedicated to retaking Spain from the Moors and protecting pilgrimages to the Holy Land. These orders functioned under the direction of the Pope and were independent of other ecclesiastical or civil authority. However, as the orders grew in wealth and power, they came into conflict with the Spanish Crown. By 1587 most of the orders fell under the control of the monarch. The orders became honorary in nature.

===== Cohabitation certificates  =====

*A record that states the legal marital status of freed slaves.

===== Collection Fabien, Canada  =====

*A collection of Catholic marriage records at the National Archives of Canada. It covers marriages that occurred from 1657 to 1974 in counties surrounding Montréal and on both the Québec and Ontario sides of the Ottawa River Valley.Collection Gagnon, Canada<br>Collection Gagnon, Canada: A collection of marriage indexes, church records, and vital records about French Canadians. This collection is at the city library of Montreal.

===== Collection Rhode Island Family Records  =====

*A list of property owners and how much tax they paid in a given year.

===== Colonel  =====

*Usually the senior staff or administrative officer in the army, air force, or marines who commands a regiment. The British often gave this as an honorary title to members of noble families.

===== Colonial census  =====

*A list and description of the population of a colony.

===== Colonial land records  =====

*Records kept about land matters during colonial times. These records were kept at the colony level but not at the county level.

===== Colonial naturalization  =====

*Wars that occurred in what is now the United States between the French, Spanish, and British governments and between the colonists and Native Americans.

===== Colonization Policy  =====

Colony of New York: An English colony established in 1664 when Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch governor of New Netherland, surrendered to the English. The Dutch formally gave the colony of New Netherland to the English. The English renamed it New York, calling it after the Duke of York, who would later become King James II of England.  

===== Colorado Territory  =====

*A territory established in 1861 that comprised all of the present-day state of Colorado.

===== Commander  =====

*An officer in the navy or coast guard who ranks above a lieutenant commander and below a captain. The commander is usually second in command of the ship.

===== Commercial directory  =====

*A business such as America On-line and CompuServe that is established to provide computer users with various types of services, including E-mail and access to the Internet.

===== Commissariat court, Scotland  =====

*A Scottish court with jurisdiction over executory (probate) and civil matters until 1823. Most of the civil matters concerned debt. Also called commissariat court.

===== Commissioned officer  =====