Jessie,
Goodman and Goodwife/Goody were titles of respect applied respectively to yeomen and their
wives (yeomen owned the land they farmed but were of lesser social standing than
gentlemen).
Mr and Mrs (both typically written without a period) were abbreviations of Master (not
Mister) and Mistress, titles of respect applied respectively to gentlemen (also clergymen
and high-ranking public officials) and gentlewomen. These terms denoted social—not
marital—status. A spinster (any unmarried woman) of gentle birth was as appropriately
called Mistress as was the wife of a gentleman.
In the context in which you found them, the terms Brother and Sister were respectful
titles for church members: brother/sister in Christ.
Gene Z.
On Jan 18, 2010, at 12:02 AM, carpenter-request(a)rootsweb.com wrote:
Message: 1
Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2010 19:34:13 -0600
From: Jessie Deith <jessydeith(a)aol.com>
Subject: [CARPENTER] titles
To: Carpenter mailing list <CARPENTER(a)rootsweb.com>
Message-ID: <425A9A7B-193E-4B19-A343-97B80FCDF7DE(a)aol.com>
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When reading a seating list for a New England Meeting-house I noticed
many different titles and wondered if anyone could explain what the
differences were. Among the men were - Goodman, Brother, Mr and
sometimes just their name. Among the women there were similar titles
- Goody, Goodw., Mrs. and Sister but never just their name.
Jessie Deith