Useful Terminology beginning with the letter B

Banns – Public announcement of intended marriage, usually read in church on three successive Sundays
Barton – Farmyard; farm not let with rest of manor.
Base born – born out of wedlock or of low parentage.
Beneficiary – One who receives benefit of trust or property.
Bequeath – To give personal property to a person in a will. Noun: bequest.
Biblography – List of sources.
Birth Certificate – Documentation about one’s birth.
Bond – A binding agreement to perform certain actions or duties or requiring payment of a specified amount of money as a penalty; at different times required of estate administrators or executors, grooms (for marriage), certain elected officials (such as constables).
Bondsman – Person acting as surety for a bond (often, but by no means ordinarily, a relative)
Bordar – a small-holder, usually on the outskirts of a village
Bounty Land – Land promised as reward or inducement for enlisting in military service.
Bounty Land Warrant – A right to obtain bounty land, specific number of acres of an allocated public land.
Buried, partly – indicates the heart is buried in one place and the body in another, usually by directions of a will

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