nativus

[ElizabethHerts]

I have a burial in 1761 and after the man's name is the word "nativus".

My Latin dictionary treats this word only as an adjective and suggests "created; inborn, native, natural".

However, I think it is being used as a noun here. Any ideas what it signifies here?

[ElizabethHerts]

Hmm, I have found this:

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=native

Perhaps it just means that he was born in the parish (which is correct). But why put that for him and no-one else?

[kiterunner]

Can you link to the PR image, please, Elizabeth?

[ElizabethHerts]

It's a Hertfordshire parish not online, Kate. I've been through all my print-outs and have found a couple of years where the vicar wrote this by most of the burials, and I now think it just means "born in the parish".

[Janet in Yorkshire]

Sometimes vicars seem to have developed their own pedantic eccentricities when writing in the registers, especially those who'd had a sound classical education. In one of the marriage registers I've used a lot, there was a phase when the incumbent recorded "inmate" for the occupation/profession of most of the brides. It would seem he was recording that they were a resident native of the village, as opposed to others who'd only recently taken up residence.

He was quite pedantic about adding a marginal note in the register to record the actual date when he added a batch of marriages and on one occasion commented on an error he'd made, caused through writing "in the dusk of the evening."

Jay