"tertius" in OPRs .....

elisabeth · Post by **elisabeth** » Wed Feb 01, 2006 11:08 am

Has anyone come across "tertius" being used to distinguish a third family member from a senior and junior? If so, was junior "tertius"'s father and senior his grandfather or are there other permutations?
I have a William Ranny,tertius marrying in 1783 in Alva.(witnesses William and James Ranny) He is still "tertius" at his child's baptism in 1800. There is also a William Ranny junior's family in the OPRs between 1776 and 1794, so that's obviously not his father.There's a William Ranny Sr. and William Ranny Jr witnessing the baptism of James Ranny's son in 1793.
Could William Ranny,tertius have been a younger cousin of William Ranny,junior? or was tertius strictly used for a grandson of the same name?
Any help would be appreciated, as I am completely bewildered.
Elisabeth

Rab · Post by **Rab** » Wed Feb 01, 2006 11:59 pm

Strange. I just found one the other day. A Latimer Tertius Sharp who died in 1951. His father was William but his granfather and great grandfather were also named Latimer Sharp. I had no idea about the word "Tertius".

elisabeth · Post by **elisabeth** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 2:46 pm

You have given me renewed hope that maybe I was right to pencil in William tertius's father as John, the brother of William senior. I believe that John and William senior's father and grandfather were both called William. Thanks for your reply.
Elisabeth

Rab · Post by **Rab** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 3:38 pm

I had a search about for Latin used in genealogy and found the answer. It literally means third in ordinal terms. The case I saw was referring to calender dates so I'd assume in our case it would mean third generation of <insert name here>.

Latin ordinals are:- primus, secundus, tertius, quartus, quintus, sextus, septimus, octavus, nonus, decimus, etc.

elisabeth · Post by **elisabeth** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 4:55 pm

It would have been so much easier if they had used "son of William and Marion" instead!(They were all weavers, so the occupation didn't help) And my William senior was William Ranny the younger earlier in his life.

Elisabeth