Don't panic—with a little knowledge of how the Latin language works, you can usually plod your way through and abstract the essential genealogical information on your own. Add a few reference books, and you can interpret collateral information that can often shed light on genealogical problems.

Latin is most likely to be found in Roman Catholic sacramental registers between 1850 and 1950. (Earlier ones were often kept in the vernacular, although Latin was used in worship and in other records.) However, many other pre-twentieth-century records were kept in Latin, especially those associated with higher education or learning. In Protestant denominations that emphasized a classically educated clergy, records kept by the minister may be in Latin. University and medical records were also frequently in Latin.

Word Endings Change
The key to coping with occasional Latin sources is recognizing that the forms of words, particularly the endings, change much more than in English to show changes in meaning—a process called inflection. Even the form of proper names changes, often leading to confusion.

In English, we inflect, or change word forms, only on a limited scale. We add -ed to verbs to show the action took place in the past (unless we change the whole word, as with find or found); add -'s to nouns to show possession, and -s or -en to nouns to show they are plural rather than singular. Latin plurals usually end in -ae, -i, or -es.

Latin makes three other distinctions that in English generally affect only our pronouns. The first is how the word is used in a sentence, which is called case. In English, we usually show this by the order of words in a sentence, putting the subject or performer before a verb or action word, and the object after it. But we do distinguish the pronoun forms that can be used as subjects—I, thou, he, she, it, we, you, they—from the possessive forms—my, mine, thy, thine, his, hers, its, our, ours, your, yours, their, theirs—and the forms used after verbs or prepositions—me, thee, him, her, it, us, you, them.

The second Latin distinction is the relationship to the speaker—a distinction that English makes principally in its pronouns. As in English, the first person refers to the speaker—I, me, we, us; the second person indicates those addressed—thou, thee, you; the third person applies to anyone or anything else—he, him, she, her, it (the singular third person in English also requires adding -s or -es to the verb), they, them.

Finally, Latin nouns, including proper names, and any adjectives that describe them, have grammatical gender. In Latin, the ending -us is usually masculine, while -a is feminine. But Latin gender may not relate to whether its subject is biologically male or female or inanimate. For example, civitas, city or state, and navis, ship, are both feminine. English-language gender, as in words like master and mistress, more often reflects biological sex or its absence, as does use of the gender-specific third person singular pronouns he, him, she, her, it.

Examples of how words change in use:

Leonem baptizavi-I baptized Leo

Leo baptizata est-Leo has been baptized

Maria baptizabatur-Mary was baptized

Mariam ego infrascriptus baptizavi-I, the undersigned, baptized Mary

An -m ending on a name or other noun usually means that it is the object of a verb or preposition. A name ending in -i, -ae, or -is is frequently a possessive form. Figure 1 gives more detailed information on how name endings change depending on their use in a sentence.

Problems with Latin Names
Many names are similar in Latin and English: Albertus-Albert, Robertus-Robert, Andreas-Andrew. Others bear no resemblance, and still others have a choice of English equivalents. Sometimes the ending changes cause confusion, as when Mariam, the object form of Mary, is interpreted as Marian, Maryann, or Miriam, rather than as Mary or some other variation of that name.

Here are some examples, arranged by the declension-the pattern of changing case endings-to which they belong. Sometimes the form of a name used in the nominative case, as a subject, is different from that used in other cases, as with Hugo and Hugonis, Latin forms for Hugh. Where two forms are given, the first is the nominative form, the second the genitive or possessive form, from which other cases are derived by adding the appropriate third-declension ending.

First declension, mostly feminine except for masculine names with the nominative case ending in -as:

Aemilia: Emily

Alicia: Alice, Elsie, Alyssa

Andreas (m.): Andrew

Birgitta: Bridget (Sweden)

Brigida: Brigid, Bridget (Ireland)

Catharina: Catherine, Kathryn, Kathleen, Caitlin

Elizabetha: Elizabeth, Beth, Betty, Isabel, Lisa

Helena: Helen, Ellen, Nell, Aileen, Eileen, Nora

Joanna, Johanna: Joan, Jane, Jeanne, Jeanette, Joanne, Sinead, Siobhan

Lucas (m.): Luke, Lucas

Maria: Mary, Marie, Maria, Moire, Mame, Polly

Maria Anna: Mary Ann, Marian, Marianne, etc.

Malachias (m.): Malachy

Matthias (m.): Matthias, Matt

Thomas (m.): Tom

Second declension, all masculine:

Aedus: Hugh

Alfredus, Aluredus: Alfred

Aloisius: Aloysius, Louis, Luis

Arturus: Arthur

Carolus: Charles, Carl, Karl

Dionysius: Dennis

Donatus: Duncan

Eduardus: Edward, sometimes Eamon

Edmundus: Edmund, Edmond, Eamon

Franciscus: Francis, Frank

Guglielmus, Gulielmus: William

Gualterus: Walter

Henricus: Henry

Hieronymous: Jerome

Ludovicus: Louis, Lewis, Ludwig

Marcus: Mark, Marcus

Matthaeus: Matthew

Nicolaus: Nicholas

Patricius: Patrick

Petrus: Peter

Radulfus: Ralph

Ricardus: Richard, Dick, Dirck

Rufus: Rory, Rufus, Red

Rugerius: Roger, Rory

Timotheus: Timothy

Third declension, masculine and feminine:

Alexander, Alexandris: Alexander

Beatrix, Beatricis: Beatrice

Hugo, Hugonis: Hugh

Johannes, Johannis: John, Sean, Eoin, Ian

Leo, Leonis: Leo, Leon

Word Meanings
The references listed at the end of this article provide lists of words likely to be encountered in Latin records relating to family history, including numbers, names of months, relationship terms, and vital-event terms. Translations for a number of words common to church registers appear in the samples in figure 2.

Here are some other terms that you may encounter in Latin records:

a, ab: from

acatholicus: non-catholic

ad: to

aetas, aetatis: age

apud: near, at

aut: or

autem: however

bannum: advance marriage announcement

cautella: caution

civitas, civitatis: city or state

comitas: county

defunctus: dead

denuntiatio, denuntiationis: announcement (of banns)

eadem: the same, by the same (f.)

eam: her

ei: them

eis: to, by them

eodem: by the same (m. and n.)

ex: from (place of origin)

feria: day

genitus: born

gradus: step, degree (of kindred)

hac, haec, hoc, hujus, his: this

hebdomada: week

hic: here, now

humatus: buried

ibi: here

ibidem: in the same place

idem: the same (m. and n.)

instans, instantis: present, current, instant

ipse: self

item: also

manu: by hand (signed)

N., N.N. (Nomen): blank space for name(s)

nox, noctis: night

nocte: at night

ob: for, because of, in accordance with

obitus: died

pagus: village

parochia or paroecia: parish

periculum: peril, danger

sepelivi: I have buried

sepultus: buried

sponsus: bridegroom

sponsa: bride

subscriptus: undersigned

tamen: nevertheless, yet, however, indeed

testis: witness

ubi: where

ultimus: last

When you're faced with a Latin entry, start out by transcribing it, leaving a generous space between lines. Look up each word and write its meaning below it, as in the samples in figure 2. If the meaning isn't immediately apparent, you may have to puzzle more over the number, gender, and case of a noun, or the number, person, and tense of a verb. If you really get stuck, elementary textbooks give tables of all the ending changes (called declensions) for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives, and those for verbs (called conjugations).

Finding resource people in your local community who can help with Latin problems is becoming more and more difficult. High school or college language departments are a good place to start, but most teachers are schooled in classical Latin, not the late Latin found in most records. Doctors, pharmacists, and lawyers once had to know Latin, but in most places it hasn't been a requirement for half a century or more. Catholic priests were once taught in Latin and were usually proficient-if not fluent-in using it, but those ordained in the past thirty years have not been required to learn Latin.

But don't sell short your own ability. You'll be able to work out most documents in Latin for yourself. Word-by-word translating may be tedious, but the rewards are well worth the effort.

Donn Devine, a genealogical consultant from Wilmington, Delaware, is also an attorney and archivist for the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington. A contributor to numerous genealogical publications, he holds Certified Genealogist and Certified Genealogical Instructor designations from the Board for Certification of Genealogists, of which he is also a trustee. He is a director of the National Genealogical Society and chairs its Standards Committee.