This article on reading penmanship is long overdue, and I was happy to see it on my newsletter from the Old Buncombe County Genealogical Society.
Deciphering Old Documents
by Dee Gibson-Roles
One of the most difficult tasks for a genealogist is that of reading and
deciphering handwriting in old documents. Besides the fact that some
handwriting is almost impossible to read, there were letters and letter
forms used in “the olden days” that are no longer commonly used, if used
at all.
Coupled with that problem is the lack of standardized spelling until
close to the 20th century. We will address all of these problems here
and provide some tips on deciphering old documents.
One letter or term that is often seen in old handwriting and continues
today is the word or term “ye” as in “Ye Olde Tavern.” Quite often today
this “ye” is used when an ambiance of colonial times is desired. Most
pronounce the word as “yee.”
But this pronunciation is totally in error. It seems hard to fathom that
the correct pronunciation is simple “the” — just as the word “the” is
pronounced. Of course the first question is, “How on earth did they get
‘the’ out of ‘ye’?!?” Perhaps a bit of the history of the term will
explain.
The letter form that became the “Y” was called a “thorn” and was
probably derived from a rune, part of a runic alphabet used by Northern
European or Germanic peoples until about the 1200s. It represented what
is now our “th.” But when the printing press came into use, there was no
sign or letter for the thorn, which resembles a lower-case “p” with the
loop moved down to the middle of the vertical line.
The letter closest in appearance to the thorn was the “y,” which was
often substituted for the thorn in printed material. Thus the “y” when
used in this context was pronounced “th,” and when the letter e was
added to it, the word became “the” in pronunciation.
Few people today even realize that the word is actually pronounced “the.”
Another letter form that can be confusing to a researcher, especially a
new one, it that of the double “s.” Almost anywhere in a document that a
word with a double “s” (as in Tennessee) occurred, the two letters were
replaced with a symbol or letter that was very similar in appearance to
a lower case “f” or “p.” It is very important to remember this when
reading or transcribing any old handwriting.
Obviously some indexers are not aware of this, as we sometimes see the
word “Tennepee” or “Tennefee” in transcriptions of old handwriting used
in place of what is obviously supposed to be “Tennessee.”
Capitals and Spelling Confusion
Sometimes it is very hard to distinguish between two or more letters at
the start of a word. Good examples of this are the letters “I” and “L”
or “J” and “I.” Also, it can be difficult to distinguish an upper case
“S” from an upper case “L,” especially in given names or even surnames.
By comparing the unknown letter to a known word in which the letter is
definitely the same as the one in question, one can usually ascertain
which letter is correct.
A good example of this is confusion between the names Samuel and Lemuel.
Often it is hard to determine which one is the correct, one as many
writers formed the capital “S” and “L” nearly alike. The best way to
resolve the question is to search for another known word in the document
that begins with the same letter and compare the known first letter to
the one in question.
For many researchers, the first attempts at reading on old document
result in much frustration. There are several reasons for the
difficulty. Two of the most obvious are the spelling of words and the
embellishment of many letters with flourishes and so on.
First and foremost, there was no standard spelling until the late 19th
century or early 20th century. We often hear the statement that a
certain word or name was misspelled in a document. However, we cannot
say that the spelling of any word or name was incorrect at that time
because of the lack of standardization.
In fact, it has been said that the more ways a person could find (or
invent) to spell his name or another word was an indication of his
educational level and/or his intelligence. Doubtless this is an
exaggeration, but it does bear a grain of truth.
Another spelling problem is that many words were spelled phonetically,
as the writer heard them, and not necessarily the way we would expect to
see them. For example, in one letter written by a Confederate soldier
to his family, he stated that a friend had died of “new money” fever. He
was referring to pneumonia or “pneumonie fever” as it was called.
Punctuation and capitalization of words is another problem. Punctuation
was, at best, a “sometime thing” and again, there was no standardization
where capitalization of the first letter of a word was concerned. One
can expect to see several words within a sentence with the first letter
capitalized even in formal documents. (Common nouns especially were
often capitalized, as they still are in modern German.)
As far as the lack of punctuation is concerned, it is best to read a
whole paragraph and determine where the punctuation should be placed to
make the sentences “make sense.”
Transcribing Errors
We would be remiss if we did not mention transcription at this point. In
transcribing any document, the contents must be recorded exactly as
they are in the original documents, spelling problems and lack of
punctuation included. In fact, the word “transcription” as applied to
older documents indicates that it has been recorded word for word
exactly as written in the original document.
If necessary, one can add footnotes or endnotes to the transcription
explaining or clarifying any part that is still difficult to understand.
On a lighter note, one researcher was recently transcribing County Court
minutes from the 1790s, recording the transcription as a Word document.
Repeatedly, the program kept trying to correct the spelling and
repeatedly, the transcriber reversed the correction to be exactly what
was in the minutes. Finally the program gave up and notified the
transcriber that it was turning off the spell-check function!
When attempting to read an old document in which words or passages are
difficult to decipher, it is a good idea to record the entire document
on paper, or least the paragraph that contains the difficult part or
parts, leaving a blank space for any word that is illegible. After
reading and recording the entire passage, one can often determine the
mystery word by seeing its place in the context of the entire document.
Another “trick” is to try to locate the “mystery” letter or letters in
another word or words that are legible and known. By comparing the two,
it is often easier to determine what the mystery word actually is.
Reading old documents can be challenging, frustrating and discouraging
to a beginner. Rest assured that it will be easier as time passes and
more documents are read. And remember, help is available from local
genealogical and historical societies in most areas.
Also check out what Ronni Bennett said last Wed over
HERE at Time Goes By Blog.
