Latin Translation - can anyone help please?

[Bethanys Gran]

Thanks Mary.

The spirit is willing but the knowledge is weak!!!

What I have is a microfilm of the original entries, cut down and mounted for viewing on a fiche reader.

If anyone can tell me HOW to do it - I'll give it a go!!!

I'm really grateful for everyone's input - and I now regret not having done Latin at school!

[KiteRunner]

If your local record office has a fiche printer then you could use that to print it off, and then scan the printout in to your computer, but I don't know what the quality will end up like.

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

I haven't found that Eliza, her husband David, or their son John, in 1881 - can anyone else see them? I wonder if Eliza remarried and John took her new husband's name.

David was a rivetter, and it does seem odd that the vicar would go to so much trouble over a relatively humble person, but it also seems unlikely that domini would be mistranscribed as nomini.

I couldn't find them either, Mary.

Isn't it more likely the people might have lived as a family in Rustington than in Bromley?

Which Bromley has the asylum?

[Mary from Italy]

Here's a literal translation assuming that the vicar knew what he was doing when he used masculine word endings (which fits with the death of a David White in 1874):

Uxor supradicta Elezze White, nomini David, in asylo apud Bromley insania causa LXXVII dico sine ulla intermissione detentus, 31st March 1874 mortuus est. Hae non levitie, sed ad futuras quoestiones evilandas hic relata suut.

The aforesaid wife Elezze White, of name? David, (he) having been incarcerated continuously on the ground of insanity at Bromley Asylum/Workhouse 77 (dico?) (he) died on 31st March 1874. This is not gossip, but is recounted to prevent future disputes.


I wonder if the dico should be "she says", but that would be dicet, I think, which is hard to mistake for dico.

[Mary from Italy]

I couldn't find them either, Mary.

Isn't it more likely the people might have lived as a family in Rustington than in Bromley?

I've been trying to find a good match for their marriage and Eliza's birth, and failed so far.

There is this marriage:

DAVID THOMAS WHITE
Male

Marriages:
Spouse: ELIZABETH GARRETT
Marriage: 14 FEB 1858 Saint Leonards, Shoreditch, London, England


but the only Eliza Garrett of the right age born in Sussex was born in Hartfield, which is a long way away from Rustington.

Which Bromley has the asylum?

Bromley by Bow had a workhouse - just checking asylums.

[Mary from Italy]

What I have is a microfilm of the original entries, cut down and mounted for viewing on a fiche reader.

If anyone can tell me HOW to do it - I'll give it a go!!!

Try taking a digital photo directly from the screen of the fiche reader. The quality won't be brilliant, but it might be good enough for us to decipher it.

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

I can find two workhouses in the 1871 census in Bromley St Leonard which is the Bromley in Poplar District, but haven't found any in the other Bromley so far.

[Mary from Italy]

Bromley, Kent workhouse:

www.workhouses.org.uk - The Workhouse Web Site

Poplar workhouse:

Poplar Workhouse and Poor Law Union

St. Leonard's, Shoreditch workhouse:

Shoreditch Poor Law Union and Workhouse

I think the second and third covered the Bromley-by-Bow area , but I'm not very good on London geography.

[Mary from Italy]

There doesn't seem to be a Bromley lunatic asylum:

Index of Lunatic Asylums and Mental Hospitals

but there's a reference here to the Bromley Sick Asylum, also called the Bow Workhouse:

RootsWeb: LONDON-L Fw: [Lon] The Sick Asylum, Bromley?

[Roger in Sussex]

Here's a literal translation assuming that the vicar knew what he was doing when he used masculine word endings (which fits with the death of a David White in 1874):

Uxor supradicta Elezze White, nomini David, in asylo apud Bromley insania causa LXXVII dico sine ulla intermissione detentus, 31st March 1874 mortuus est. Hae non levitie, sed ad futuras quoestiones evilandas hic relata suut.

The aforesaid wife Elezze White, of name? David, (he) having been incarcerated continuously on the ground of insanity at Bromley Asylum/Workhouse 77 (dico?) (he) died on 31st March 1874. This is not gossip, but is recounted to prevent future disputes.


I wonder if the dico should be "she says", but that would be dicet, I think, which is hard to mistake for dico.

Mary, I much prefer that to my version, on the basis of the transcript we have. I think that a pedant might say it ought to be detenti and perhaps mortui, but that would be really splitting hairs.

It does raise one point. Suppose the word is actually nomine. Then maybe she had power of attorney (did it exist then OC?) to act in the name of her husband, and the Vicar was supporting her in this. Perhaps he was himself elderly, and wanted to leave a permanent record?

Pure speculation, but it does seem more feasible than the link with the aristocracy I suggested before. I can't think of another Latin word which would transcribe as nomini, but perhaps some else can?

[Mary from Italy]

Is this entry in the burial register? What date, and whose burial? What are the entries immediately before and after it?

[Bethanys Gran]

This inscritption is written in the margin at the bottom of the page and refers to Entry Number 613 which is as follows:


Rustington Parish Register
Page 77
Entry Number 613
Baptised 09 March 1875 Henry George born 10 February 1875
No Father shown
Elizze White Mother
From Rustington
Widow

Thanks for all the effort you are making!

[Olde Crone Holden]

Roger

I did wonder if it might have said nominE, but my Latin grammar is poor and I couldn't work out what difference it would make!

Would you agree that the construction of the sentence is slightly clumsy, suggesting that the Vicar was not a Latin scholar, and more used to reading Latin than writing it?

We really need to know EXACTLY where Bethany found this, (date? position in register?) and what comes immediately before and after it in the register.

As to Eliza/beth being an executor, yes, I think she could be legally (unusual) but it may be as you suggested, the Vicar was acting on her behalf at her request. More likely she was a beneficiary though.

This has caught my imagination and I am thoroughly intrigued now!

OC

[Roger in Sussex]

Ahah, all is revealed.

The vicar is making the point that Elizze had an 10½ month pregnancy. Kind of him to put it in Latin.;)

[Olde Crone Holden]

Lololol!!!

Oc

[Roger in Sussex]

OC,

Cross posted with you.

nomine would be the ablative and could be translated as "in the name of". As in the Roman Catholic blessing.

However in view of the new info, I think we can forget that!

[Olde Crone Holden]

Have we decided who died?!

OC

[Uncle John]

Presumably the supposed father.

[Roger in Sussex]

Have we decided who died?!

OC

Not Elizze/Elezze anyway!

[Mary from Italy]

Aha, so my guess in post 34 was right.

We could have sorted it a bit quicker if you'd told us that in the first place, Bethany's Gran (not criticising, though, I realise you didn't know it was relevant).

So, armed with this new information, this is what it probably says:

Uxor supradicta Elezze White, vidua David, in asylo apud Bromley insania causa LXXVII dies sine nulla intermissione detentus, 31st March 1874 mortuus est. Hae non levitia, sed ad futuras quaestiones evitandas hic relata sunt.

The aforesaid Elezze White (is) the widow? of David, who was incarcerated continuously on the ground of insanity at Bromley Asylum/Workhouse for 77 days?, and died on 31st March 1874. This is not gossip, but is recounted to prevent future disputes.

Have a look at the original, and see if it corresponds to the alterations I've made to the Latin text.