My Tangent – When Is an Attorney Not An Attorney?

Afternoon,

My head is in a spin this morning, and not saying that some of you may consider that it is in a spin at most times anyway, but here is my question… When is an attorney not an Attorney? See that I have maintained a lowercase on the first “attorney” and I’ve capitalized the second, “Attorney”.

And really, I am serious; this is not a trick question. This is me trying to understand something that I have found in my Transcription Project that may or may not provide some sort of clue in my search for the genealogy and ancestry of my ggg-grandfather James Smith.

This is what I’ve found as to definitions of the word "attorney".

Today’s definitions:
1. From The Free Dictionary, by Farlex – attorney

• (Law) a person legally appointed or empowered to act for another
• (Law) (Business/Professions) US a lawyer qualified to represent clients in legal proceedings
• (Law) (Business/Professions) South African a solicitor
• [from Old French atourné, from atourner to direct to; see ATTORN]

2. From the Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary – attorney

• Etymology Middle English attourney, from Anglo-French aturné, past participle of aturner
• Date: 14th Century
• one who is legally appointed to transact business on another’s behalf; especially :Lawyer

3. From AskOxford.com, Oxford Dictionaries – attorney

• a person appointed to act for another in legal matters
• chiefly US a lawyer
• ORIGIN from Old French atorner ‘assign’

And so, come back and just take a gander at my next couple of postings in my Transcription Project. Is there some shred of evidence as to the origins of my ggg-grandfather James Smith? Or is it just happenstance? And the search continues.

Enjoy,

Jim

(Image of Ringmaster borrowed from Freaker's Ball Blog. Thanks.)