Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Abstracts of Wills in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury at Somerset House, London, England: Register Soame, 1620
The reader should bear in mind the fact that certain words in the Seventeenth Century differed very widely from present usage thus Sir means often a Priest as well as a Knight, Mrs. Was fre quently used as a title of respect for an unmarried gentlewoman or even a child, nephew is as likely to describe a grandson as a brother's son, while kinsman and cousin were used in the loosest possible manner and might signify almost any degree of relation ship. Many Christian names also are used with perplexing indii ference, ' Jacob and James, Anne and Hannah, Elizabeth and Isabell, are common instances of this habit.
Such bequests as gowns to 70 almsmen or bread to 48 poor old women almost invariably indicate the age of the testator, and are thus often of great value in his identification.
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