LFHHS Chorley Branch
  • Home
  • Virtual Branch
  • Help Desk
    • Queries
    • Hints and Tips >
      • Oooo... What fibbers
      • Family History July Bulletin
      • Where in the Census are they?
      • This can’t be true!
      • Their Ages are wrong
      • Wow! Why aren’t they all like this? (1)
      • Where did that come from?
      • Notably Rough
      • Using Birth Marriage and Death Certificate entries
      • It’s a Will Not an I Love or Hate You List
      • All the Church Records
      • The census was not created for genealogists
      • WW2 Service records
      • Censuses
    • Poor Law Records
    • Look ups >
      • CGMP
      • Frank Hough's DB
    • Online Resources >
      • Executions in England from 1606
      • Index of the Names of Royalist Traitors
      • ​Lancashire Men at the Battle of Waterloo
      • Military Medals >
        • 1914-15 Star
        • British War Medal
        • 1939 - 1945 Star
        • 1939 - 1945 War Medal
        • Africa Star
        • Burma Star
        • Italy Star
        • Pacific Star
        • Silver Badge
        • Victory Medal
      • Ranks of the British army and the abbreviations of those ranks:
    • Useful Websites >
      • Useful Websites - Lists online
      • Useful Websites - Members recommendations
      • Useful Websites - Free Research Sites
  • Contact Us
  • Chorley Branch Newsletters
  • Quarter Sessions
  • Research Centre Hours
  • Newsletters 2024
  • Newsletters 2025
Picture
Picture

At first sight the task might seem daunting. Many old texts seem,impossible to read, but with the help of a few hints and tips much of it might become clearer.
 
As with many things practice makes perfect.
 
Prior to 1733 legal texts could be in English or Latin. After this date they had to be in English. So as you can see from the example above it is in English.
 
Key to understanding why writing styles developed as they did you need to take into account what was being written on and what they wrote with. For example the Quill Pen was not good at doing an upward stroke. So for example the lower case d is often written thus –

 
Picture
Bur letter shapes can differ. In this case the d is written quite differently – it is the same word, in the same document!

Picture
This is also with the ‘s’ and the ‘h’ in Parish.
 
Picture

Tips
Here are some tips that show some ways how we might go about it.
 
                1.  Always consider the context of the words.


This is an entry for marriage so the translation is fairly obvious. The only difficulty is with the capital letters. This chap likes his fancy letters. Can you work out what they are?
 
There are other things to notice.  The ‘y’ with an ‘e’ over it. The ‘y’ is a thorn a letter that has fallen out of use and represents ‘th’. The e makes it ‘the’. Thus ‘yt’ means that.

 
Picture
Three things to note. At this time they had no widely accepted capital letter ‘F’. They used a double lower case ‘f’ (ff) instead. So Ffarrington is wrong and ffarrington is correct. The second thing is the backward ‘e’ in ffieldes which was very common. Thirdly the last character on the line is an abbreviation character for ‘es’.
 
So it becomes ‘of the Parish of Martins in the ffieldes’.

 
                2.  If you cannot read a word then Translate / Transcribe the text
                     letter by letter.

 
Try this but also consider the context in the document above –
 

Picture
There are two things to note here. The backward ‘e’ we have seen before but the line through the d is another abbreviation character. In the same way in the word ‘won’t’ the apostrophe indicates missing letter or letters the line is exactly the same.
 
So it becomes ‘afores(ai)d’.
 
                3. Compare words or letter with others within the text. Write down
                     the letters you do know and compare the ones you don’t to the
                     words you do know. Try this –

 
Picture
Initially you might only be certain of one letter _ a _ _ but we have come across one other letter -
 
Picture
it is the letter ‘h’. So now we have _ a _ h. The third letter could be an ‘r’ but it is not like the ‘r’ in Parish above. Look around the text for other examples –
 
Picture
Picture
Can you read these words they are ‘according’ and ‘proceedings’ so our word becomes
_ a c h. I cannot find that first character that looks anything like it within the supplied text but the context solves it ‘of taking _ach other in marriage’.

The word is ‘each’.


                4.  Always write down exactly what is written and do not ‘correct’
                     spellings.
 
                5.  If necessary prepare an alphabet. Copy out individual letters into
                     an alphabet - upper and lower case. Capital letters can have forms
                     totally alien to us -

 
Picture
Cutler
                6.  Place names and Surnames can be a guide to capital letters. Parish
                     names - Use Phillimore's Atlas or a gazetteer.
 
                7.  Get to know the format of standard documents.
 
                8.  Dates are sometimes shown in ways unfamiliar to us.

 
Picture
Picture

Annual (6)
Picture

Minimum (15)


Abbrebiations

We have a lot of ways of abbreviating words.
  • Stop at the end of a word to indicate missing letters. Co. Ltd. – Company Limited, e.g. i.e. lb. No.
  • Apostrophe in the middle of a word to indicate missing letters. He’d, we’ll, won’t etc.
  • Superscript
  • LFHHS, acronyms LOL
  • Special Characters &, @, #

In the past, abbreviations were widely used, but many differ from ours.
 

Some examples
Picture

All are abbreviations for either Per Par Por for example--

 
Picture




A long ‘s’, ‘u’ and ‘per’ (super)

Picture

In a similar way a ‘p’ written this way is ‘pro’


Picture



This symbol marks where letters are missing  evy--every

Picture


Again missing letters  intest--interest

Picture
This time it is a line indication missing letters  Willo—Willelmo—(William in a version of Latin). Note the capital W.
 
Picture

Four abbreviations here—’es’ making landes, the ampersand, the line over indicating missing letters and ‘es’ again.
All making 'landes & tenements'.



This is just a brief introduction to the subject The National Archives do a series of tutorials. Start here before moving on to the main tutorials.
Printable Files
handout_handwriting
File Size: 1100 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

abreviations.jpg
File Size: 1200 kb
File Type: jpg
Download File

alphabet_1.jpg
File Size: 1255 kb
File Type: jpg
Download File

alphabet_2.jpg
File Size: 2125 kb
File Type: jpg
Download File

alphabet_3.jpg
File Size: 1015 kb
File Type: jpg
Download File

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.