Common Latin Terms for Family Members

When doing genealogical research, you may stumble upon some words of Latin. For centuries, the church provided for marriages, baptisms and burials, and Latin has been the standard for the Roman Catholic liturgy since the 6th century.

If a Latin term ends in “us”, then it refers to a male; if it ends in an “a”, it generally refers to a female. For example, “avus” refers to grandfather, “avia” to grandmother, and “avi” is used to indicate plural grandparents. “Proavus” means great grandfather and “proava” means great grandmother. So, “meus avus est pater mātris meae” can be translated as “my grandfather is my mother's father”.
The Latin language has different words for aunts, uncles and cousins, depending on whether they are on the father’s side or the mother’s side. An aunt, father’s sister, is “amita”, while an aunt on mother's side is “mātertera”. A cousin - a mother's sister's child - is “cōnsōbrīna” when female, and “cōnsōbrīnus” when male. The word for a cousin on father's side - when he's a child of father's brother - is “patruēlis”. Thus, in the table below I have focussed on general words for family members.

English	Latin
birth	nati, natus, genitus, natales, ortus, oriundus
christening	baptismi, baptizatus, renatus, plutus, lautus, purgatus, ablutus, lustratio
given name	nomen
surname	cognomen
pasgeboren	neonatus
child	infans, filius/filia, puer, proles
parents	parentes, genitores
mother	mater
father	pater
godparent	patrini, levantes, susceptores, compater, commater, matrina
husband	maritus, sponsus, conjux, vir
marriage	matrimonium, copulatio, copulati, conjuncti, intronizati, nupti, sponsati, ligati, mariti
marriage banns	banni, proclamationes, denuntiationes
jongegehuwden	neosponsi
wife	uxor, marita, conjux, sponsa, mulier, femina, consors
son	filius
(father) of the son	(pater) filii
(baptizavi) filium	(I baptized the) son
death	mortuus, defunctus, obitus, denatus, decessus, peritus, mors, mortis, obiit, decessit
burial	sepulti, sepultus, humatus, humatio
(I buried the) father	(sepelivi) patrem
widow	vidua
(son) of the widow	(filius) viduae
father	pater
(son) of the father	(filius) patris
he was baptized, has been baptized	baptizatus est, baptizata est
great-great-grandmother	abavia
great-great-grandfather, ancestor	abavus
relationship by marriage	affinitas

Sources: FamilySearch.org/wiki, BHIC.nl, BSKempen.be, NazatenDeVries.nl, en.wikiversity.org, Willebroek.info.