Vita Matris

[Ted Carpenter]

just in case anyone out there who's searching comes across the term Vita Matris.
I was trawling through a list of my own ancestors, which, purely by luck, someone else had included during their own searches, and listed as the wife of one of them (in the C17th) was "Vita Matris". Not being skilled in the Genaeology sphere of things, I thought, for a while, I must confess, that such a "name" should be easy to trace and cross-reference. It was only when I decided to google it that I discovered that it is latin for "died before their mother" and was a term widely used by parish record keepers at the time.
Please don't let anyone waste the same time as me on such a fool's errand. yes, I know I'm a plonker!!