Help needed for sore eyes .....

CatrionaL · Post by **CatrionaL** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 5:27 pm

Hullo all,

I, or rather Andrew has just uploaded a Census to the Gallery. Would appreciate your thoughts on 2 items:

1) What is John MCQueen's occupation?

2) Ann Cameron 's occupation is noted as "Toll Keeper ??????"

http://talkingscot.com/gallery/displayi ... p?pos=-157

Thanks in advance for your help

Catriona

Post by **AnneM** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 6:05 pm

Hi Catriona

Can't make out the chap's occupation though it looks like it ends in or. I think the other is Toll Keeper Assistant. Possible anyway.

Anne

Post by **Jean Jeanie** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 8:02 pm

Hi Catriona

John McQueen's occupation looks like crofter.

I agree with Ann Cameron's being Toll Keeper ???

Jean

Post by **AnneM** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 8:24 pm

Hi again

I'm wondering if I was wrong the first time and what it actually says is Toll Keeper Maritime. I have some ancestors who were lock keepers in Dumbartonshire. I think John McQueen's occupation ends in either ller or lter but am no further forward from that.

Anne

CatrionaL · Post by **CatrionaL** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 8:53 pm

Hi Anne
Thanks for lending me your wee grey cells and your eyes.

I thought like you that the word after Toll Keeper looked like "Maritime" but couldn't see how that fitted in. Do you? The Census is for Johnstone, RFW and when, Annie Robina, the wee girl on the Census got married, years later, her home address was "over Johnstone toll". Couldn't fit in the concept of a maritime Toll Keeper with Johnstone. Assistant seems to me a possibility, but........

So Jean, I tend to agree with your interpretation "Toll Keeper ????"

After Andrew had uploaded the image, I went to look at the info that I already had for John, thinking that that might give me a clue. I discovered that I have him down as a clerc, soooooo could the word we're puzzling over be writer?

Thanks for your suggestions.
Catriona

Post by **Jean Jeanie** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 11:07 pm

Hi Catriona

Having looked again I am leaning towards Maritime. The Clyde is only a few miles away so that could be the connection.

Crofter is probably incorrect due to the location. My husband and I have studied it carefully, but crofter is the only thing we can come up with.

Hope someone else has some ideas.

Jean

JayPee · Post by **JayPee** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 11:33 pm

Hi Catriona ... the image is quite small, and when I zoom in, it is
difficult to read because it blurs. Do you have a higher-resolution
image that you can post? That might help us interpret the writing.

- JayPee

mesklin · Post by **mesklin** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 12:02 am

I know this starts to get a bit repetitive, but jpg format is NOT a good format to do certificates in. It is a lossy format, and everytime it is copied or saved, it loses detail and information.
If the certificate came from SP, please save and post it in the original B&W tif format. This is quite compact, and will preserve the detail.

jpg is good for large colour images, where compactness and resizing are more important than absolute detail.

Mesklin

ps
This is what happens to text when it is copied as a jpg only 5 times. Part of the text in this post was captured and converted to jpg, then repeatedly copied 5 times. The corrupted pixels have been coloured red so you can see them. The top 2 lines were copied repeatedly 10 times in a tif format

StewL · Post by **StewL** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 3:45 am

Sorry but only thing I can be sure of is that it is Maritime after toll keeper, unfortunately the format it is saved and presented in does not allow any zooming in of the image and the occupation of the chap could be crofter but almost too difficult to make out.

Jack · Post by **Jack** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 8:14 am

Hi Catriona,

I'll have a look at the film as soon as i'm able to - hopefully it will be a wee bit easier to read.

Jack