Thanks to Gene for his clarifications on “durante minori aetate” and “smith.” A question I have is why the deceased would appoint an underage female to the legal responsibility of his estate, although I realize the practice took place. Wouldn’t Joanna have more likely been the sister of the deceased, and wife of Richard Carpenter, married although legally underage? The business of stated professions in 17th century England is problematic. The following quote from Cambell’s “The English Yeoman” touches on this and gives a well known example of a multi-profession yeoman: “And John Shakespeare, the poet’s father, is in some documents styled yeoman and elsewhere described as glover, butcher, and whittawer (p. 160). A Carpenter could have easily been a carpenter, a smith as well as in the cloth business at the same time. BC.