Church records

Banns, baptism, confirmation and the words of parish registers. Free to print and share. Full explanations: dailyancestor.com/dictionary/church

Acknowledgment

Quaker's written apology to keep membership

Banns

Church notice of an intended marriage

Baptism

Christian water rite admitting a person to the church

Birthright member

Quaker by birth to Quaker parents

Burial register

Church list of burials, by date of burial

By experience

Joined a Baptist church after telling of conversion

By license

Married with a license instead of banns

Camp meeting

Outdoor revival lasting several days, with camping

Certificate of removal

Quaker letter transferring a member who moved

Chapel of ease

Extra chapel for far-off members of a parish

Christening

Infant baptism with naming of the child

Church discipline

Congregation's process for correcting members

Churching

Blessing of a mother after childbirth

Churchwarden

Lay officer of an Anglican parish

Circuit rider

Traveling Methodist preacher on horseback

Class leader

Lay head of a small Methodist weekly group

Communicant

Member who receives Holy Communion

Condemned

Quaker admitted and renounced their own fault

Conditional baptism

Baptism given in case an earlier one was invalid

Confirmation

Rite affirming faith, often in the early teens

Consanguinity

Kinship by blood, counted in degrees

Convinced Friend

Adult who joined the Quakers by conviction

Curate

Assistant priest under a rector

Deacon

Church officer; clergy in some churches, not in others

Dismissed by letter

Left a church in good standing with a transfer letter

Disowned

Expelled from Quaker membership

Dispensation

Church permission to set aside a marriage rule

Dissenter

Protestant outside the established state church

Elder

Church leader; meaning varies by denomination

Excluded

Put out of a church for an offense

First communion

Child's first time receiving Holy Communion

Glebe

Land belonging to a parish to support its minister

Godparent

Godfather or godmother at a baptism

Half-Way Covenant

Puritan rule letting non-full members baptize children

Hicksite

One branch of the 1827 Quaker split

Laid intentions

Quaker couple announced plans to marry to meeting

Local preacher

Licensed Methodist lay preacher who stayed home

Married contrary to discipline

Two Quakers married outside Quaker practice

Married out of unity

Quaker married a non-Quaker

Meetinghouse

Plain building for worship and town meetings

Membership roll

Church list of members with how they joined and left

Monthly meeting

Basic Quaker business body that kept vital records

Overseer (Quaker meeting)

Quaker member who watched over others' conduct

Parish

Local church district under one priest or rector

Parish register

Church book of baptisms, marriages and burials

Pastor

Minister leading a local congregation

Pew rent

Yearly fee for a family's own church pew

Preparative meeting

Quaker congregation's meeting that fed the monthly one

Private baptism

Baptism at home, often of a sick infant

Probationer

Trial Methodist member, usually for six months

Processioning

Vestry-ordered walking of land boundaries

Profession of faith

Joining a church by public statement of belief

Quarterly meeting

Quaker regional meeting held four times a year

Received by letter

Joined a church with a letter from a former church

Rector

Priest in charge of an Episcopal parish

Reinstated

Disowned Quaker readmitted to membership

Restored

Taken back into a church after exclusion

Session

Presbyterian board of elders running a church

Sponsor

Person who stood up for a child at baptism

Vestry

Lay board governing an Anglican parish

Vestry book

Minute book of an Anglican parish board

Yearly meeting

Large Quaker body meeting annually, sets the rules