Daily AncestorN.B.
N.B. (nota bene) means "note well": the writer is flagging a remark that the reader should pay attention to.
N.B. stands for the Latin nota bene. Clerks, ministers and census takers used it to add a comment to an entry, often in the margin.
In family records these notes can be gold: a minister writing N.B. beside a baptism to say the father was a soldier, or a census taker explaining an unusual household. Always read margins and the bottom of the page for N.B. notes.
As seen in a recordMargin note in a church register
N.B. The father of this child is a stranger from Penn.
Sources
How to cite this page
Daily Ancestor. "N.B.." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/abbreviations/nb. Last checked 2026-10-01.