Initial Capital Letter Confusion

[LesleyB]

Hi Pandabean
What you describe with your Whitecrofs was normal letter formation for a double "s" back then - the first "s" is written in a shape similar to an "f". You'll see it quite a lot on older documents.

You can see many examples of it here:
http://www.amberskyline.com/treasuremaps/oldhand.html

Best wishes
Lesley

[DavidWW]

I couldn't get Word to work for the last week.........

I first discovered this when I went get the character that I wanted so that I could write Whitecroƒs ......

David

[AndrewP]

I couldn't get Word to work for the last week.........

I first discovered this when I went get the character that I wanted so that I could write Whitecroƒs ......

Windows has the program Character Map that gives you access to characters that are not marked on your keyboard. On XP-Home, it is at:
Start → All Programs → Accessories → System Tools → Character Map

It also tells you which ones are available from a combination of keystrokes, such as <Alt>0131 (0131 on number keypad only) for ƒ.

All the best,

AndrewP

[annpa]

A lot of my CROSSANs who could write wrote it as Croƒsan, but fortunately up to now it has always been transcribed correctly.
Cheers
Annpa

[Kathy]

I am presently transcribing a district from 1861, and have the advantage of, if unsure being able to look at the enumerator other entries with similar pen strokes, or going back to 1851 for my previous interpretation of the name.

There were enumerators with beautiful “hands” and a pleasure to transcribe, whilst other look like a drunk ant dipped in ink staggered across the page.

I have found glaring mistakes made by the enumerator on my own ancestors, but when transcribing, am obliged to transcribe as enumerated, not what I know as correct.

It has also occurred to me that, whilst I was taught the same style of hand as used 100 years ago, my middle-aged daughter uses a style of print, and therefore would have problems transcribing, particularly Capital letters.

Kathy

[LesleyB]

Hi Kathy

It has also occurred to me that, whilst I was taught the same style of hand as used 100 years ago, my middle-aged daughter uses a style of print, and therefore would have problems transcribing, particularly Capital letters.

I'm currently also transcribing some census data (1851) and that was an interesting point you raised there. I think you can still train your eye to understand the letter forms of long ago, even if you don't form your own letters the same way ...otherwise no one would be able to transcribe secretary hand, and I know of folk who can!
(examples of secretary hand can be seen here:
http://www.scottishhandwriting.com/cont ... ?page=s3_3 )

- and you thought the 1861 was bad, huh??

Best wishes
Lesley

[SarahND]

It has also occurred to me that, whilst I was taught the same style of hand as used 100 years ago, my middle-aged daughter uses a style of print, and therefore would have problems transcribing, particularly Capital letters.

I was amazed to find, a few years back, that one of my best students could not read cursive handwriting!!!! I had given the class an original deed from 1808-- which I thought was more or less readable-- and he just gave up after one look. (It was a course in Historical Linguistics, so I was not just torturing the class needlessly!)

On the other hand, I would agree with Lesley that one can certainly learn to read another type of handwriting. At least, I keep telling myself that it is possible, as I struggle with the photocopies of 18th century German records I just got in Germany a week ago

Regards,
Sarah

[Kathy]

I think you can still train your eye to understand the letter forms of long ago, even if you don't form your own letters the same way

I agree Lesley, thankfully the same enumerators don't do every Ed within a district, and when I have encountered a bad "hand" it usually takes a couple of pages of the census to get used to the enumerators handwriting, as you say, train the eye to understand the letter forms of that particular enumerator.

In defence of the transcriber, when a researcher finds an error, as an example, the variations of the spelling of names, between different years of the census, it must be remembered, this spelling is often the enumerators way of spelling, and not always an error in transcribing, and when researching the use of wildcards is always advisable, even on first names, as one enumerator may spell Margaret, whilst another Margret, or Elizabeth & Elisebeth, on the Ed I am presently working on, the spelling of the occupation varies, and all by the same enumerator, Canvas bleacher, bleecher, blecher. (perhaps he was just busy that day!)

Kathy

[DavidWW]

In my lectures dealing with Scottish BMDs and censuse there's a section dealing with a number of examples showing the worst hands that I've even come across.

To restore the balance a wee bit, I also show the attached example from Covington registration district, - http://talkingscot.com/gallery/displayi ... p?pos=-921 but then this was only the second of three marriages registered that year by Mr A Hunter, Registrar .

The first time that I saw this entry I thought that it was printed

David

[Kathy]

David,

What a wonderful example to use for beautiful hand writing, and all with a dipped pen, researching/transcribing would be so much easier, but probably a lesser challenge, if all the records were so good.

This example is also perfect to use when explaining the ƒs, in the first marriage witneƒs, in the second marriage witness.

Kathy