ROOTS Genealogical Dictionary
ROOTS
Dictionary of Genealogy & Archaic Terms
[Y]
Last Updated:
December 29, 2007
This file contains many of the common "buzzwords", terminology and legal
words found in genealogy work. If you think of any words that should be added to
this list, please notify Randy Jones.
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- YARDLAND
- a peasant holding, also know as a virgate,
it was a medieval English unit of area equal to about a quarter of a hide,
or about 30 acres, possessed by a gebur
- YEOMAN:
- 1) an experienced man capable of keeping account of supplies and costs
- 2) a farmer/freeholder who tills his own small acreage, ranking below a
gentleman
- 3) a person who can be counted on to work diligently and effectively
- 4) a clerk or writer in the navy.{E}
By 15th C. English common law, he was a freeholder or copyholder, farming
at least 50 acres and have an annual income of 40 shillings from his freehold
property. His social status depended on who he served and responsibilities
given. It was very important to know for whom he was a yeoman to
understand the meaning of his occupation. The yeoman was considered to be
below a gentleman but above a
villein. "Yeoman" is also a term for "fighting
men." It also became common for the word to be used in a very general
way to describe outdoorsmen or hunters skilled in "wodecraft" (a term that
encompasses the yeoman's knowledge of the rules and conventions that governed
medieval hunting practices), possibly because they, like England's celebrated
military yeoman, were viewed as being skillful archers. In many of the
Robin Hood poems and ballads, for example, Robin's men are regularly called
yeomen, more likely because of their expertise with the bow and arrow than
because they enjoyed a particular social standing or were small
landholders. - Lynda Harris -- [email protected]
- YOKE
- (1) a measure of land in co.Kent, England equivalent to 1/4 of a
sulung
- (2) the harness of an oxen or other draft animal
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Sources:
{A}The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third
Edition copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
{B} Black's Law Dictionary, 6th Edition
{D} Dictionary.com
{E} Evans, Barbara Jean. The New A to Zax
{F}The Dictionary of Genealogy by Terrick V H Fitzhugh
{H} History of the Later Roman Empire, Vol.1, J.B. Bury,
1958.
{O}The Oxford English Dictionary
{P} Pepys' diary
{R} Random House Unabridged Dictionary (2006)
{Q} Hinshaw, William Wade, "Encyclopedia of America Quaker Genealogy," (1938,
Rpt., Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1994)
{W} Webster's Collegiate Dictionary; Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA,
Inc.
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