Colonial Handwriting Hazards and Hints

Colonial Handwriting Hazards and Hints DOROTHEE HUGHES CAROUSSO, L. H. D., F. G. S. P., C.G. T HE TECHNIQUE OF READING and deciphering old handwritten documents is a lifetime study, but the majority of documents encountered in genealogical research can be mastered. The difficulty of reading old wills and deeds discourages many hopeful genealogists from continuing the search, which is a shame. If the writer had the patience to learn how to write the document, the present-day reader should have the patience to learn how to read it. In this day and age, we take handwriting very much for granted. We find it hard to identify with the millions of people in this world who do not know how to read or write their own languages. It is shocking that there are nearly five million persons in our own country who can neither read or write. The tragedy is that, except by the spoken word, these people are unable to communicate with one another, or with us. This is what reading and writing are all about. They are tools of communication between one human being and another, between one generation and another. Because I could read my great-grandmother's diary, I know a great deal about someone who died before I was born. In the case of genealogical records we have very little oral history to work with and what little we have we can seldom trust too far. Consequently, the one tool of communication between us and those who lived before us, is handwriting. Printing, of course, is a tool of communication. But printing, as we know it, is hardly five hundred years old and was used very sparsely in our own early Colonial days. The records which you and I use in genealogical research are, in the main, handwritten. This is the primary communication we have with those long dead. What are some of the things which human beings communicate to one another? We could say that they fall into one of two catego227 228 Colonial Handwriting ries: — the real world of real things; and the abstract world of ideas, of thoughts. Generally, we refer to things which are familiar to both of us. If I speak of "the moon," I know that you know what I'm talking about. Whether it is quarter, full, or half, it is still one single object well-known to both of us. Now, if you were born in a cave and had lived in a cave all your life, you would not be familiar with "the moon"— so you and I would have no common meeting-ground for communication with one another on the subject. And this is one of the greatest difficulties a novice has in reading Colonial handwriting. He is looking at the moon—he can see the moon—but he does not understand what it is he is looking at. Is it a will? If so, what do all those words say? Is it a deed? If so, what do all those words mean? Well, when you have looked at wills and deeds as many times as you have looked at the moon, you will know what the words say and what they mean. There is no substitute for the experience of seeing and doing. That is how you will really familiarize yourself with Colonial handwriting. Try to keep in mind that the writer, way back in those early days, was trying to tell you something. Whether or not you are going to understand what he was trying to tell you is now completely up to you. He cannot come back and rewrite this piece of paper any more clearly, so it's up to you to work at reading his handwriting until you get the message he left for you. All handwriting is a message. We don't know when man first found his voice. We do know that he learned very early to communicate — to his own people and to us—by means of drawings on the walls of his caves and his mountains. His purpose seems to have been to leave a record of his understanding of the world around him. Later, he had to find a means of communicating his ideas—his comprehension of abstracts. This he also did by means of signs and graphs. This means of communication is still used by the Orientals in their handwriting. The Chinese system employs some forty thousand characters to express both their real world and their abstract world. One of their most amusing and expressive characters is said to be the one which reads "trouble." It pictures two women under one roof. That's trouble! Writing as we know it, however, is generally believed to have been introduced to the western world by the Phoenicians who based The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine 229 their alphabet on the earlier Egyptian. The Greek alphabet was derived from the roving Phoenician traders, but the Greeks were the first to introduce writing from left to right. From there, it traveled to Rome, and up through the European continent to the early Britons. Each country, of course, rearranged the various characters to suit the phonetics of its own language. That is why the characters of the Russian alphabet differ from those of the German alphabet—and neither one of these resembles the characters of the Anglo-Saxon alphabet —our own ABCs. The handwriting of early Colonial America was an inheritance of the Anglo-Saxon alphabet. This is important to remember. In later Colonial America, other alphabets were introduced, such as German and Dutch—but the majority of official documents upon which a genealogist must rely for evidence, were written by scribes educated either in England or educated by Englishmen here in America. The profession of scribe or scrivener was highly exalted and enviable. The ability to write was regarded by the ignorant as some kind of magic — it called forth a great deal of awe and reverence from the illiterate, who were in the majority. There was an elite of the literate in America, even among those who were not especially well-educated. This is also an important point for you to remember. When you are reading a will written in a man's own handwriting — a fact of which he was often proud enough to mention in the will itself — don't mistake his literacy as evidence of a formal education. He was a social step above his illiterate neighbor, but he was not necessarily a scholar. The general ideal of literacy among average men in Colonial America was to be able to read the Bible to their wives and children and to learn enough arithmetic to prevent them from being cheated in the marketplace. The scribe was a different breed. He was the official literate of his community and the overseer of all important legal documents. He is the fellow with whom most genealogists must learn to deal. There are two important facts about scribes for you to remember. Perhaps the most important is that he was paid by the word, so he never used one word if he could stretch out the synonyms to twenty. That was the real beginning of our legal verbiage—or garbage— however you care to view it. In writing a deed, a scribe would never record a simple agreement to "sell" a property. According to the scribe, the seller of the property "hath given granted bargained sold released & confirmed and by these presents doth give grant bargain 230 Colonial Handwriting sell release and confirm" the property to the buyer. This overkill is important to remember when reading a document written by a scribe. The second fact to remember is that the scribe's language found in our legal documents—even to the present day—has its root in Latin. If you have studied English archives of the fourteenth or fifteenth century, you already know that most of them were written in Latin. Any well-educated European worth his salt was proficient in Latin, Greek and Hebrew—in addition to his own native language. So, in deciphering Colonial handwriting, take the time to recognize some of the oft-repeated Latin words and phrases. In time, you will become very well-acquanited with them. As you are now familiar with facsimile, per annum, pro rata and et cetera. There are tricks of learning to read Colonial handwriting—or any other writing, for that matter. Among these tricks is to keep in mind that specific situations call for the use of specific words, both in writing and speaking. In today's world of words—and, of course, resorting to the ridiculous—we do not congratulate a recent widow, nor extend sympathy to a new bridegroom. At a funeral, we expect to use and to hear a specific set of words. At a wedding, a different set of specific words come into use. Exactly so in Colonial times, specific situations called for specific words which we may expect to find in most deeds, in most wills and in most court records. For example, when we pick up a document which commences with "In the name of God, Amen," we know immediately that this is a last will and testament. Not all wills commence this way, but it is most unusual to find any other document which ever commences this way. This is what I mean by relating specific words, or groups of words, to specific situations. As you familiarize yourself more and more with the word structure of various documents, the easier it is going to be for you to read them. You are going to find that documents are as full of Colonial cliches as is our present language. Another trick relates to your physical vision. It is one that Aldous Huxley brought out in his book Sight Without Glasses. It lies in the fact that in many cases — in advertising, for instance —so many words are repeated so often in our language that we see them without actually and consciously reading them. If there is a pile of mail on the hall table, and one envelope has your name on it, you will pick up that envelope without actually reading your name. You can recog- The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine 231 nize the familiar sight of your name with hardly more than a glance at it. In the same way, you can recognize many more words than you realize. You could recognize a can of Campbell's soup a block away. You don't need to be told one more time that Winston cigarettes taste good like what. Learn to trust this ability in yourself. In reading Colonial handwriting, trust your own gift for making the same kind of sense out of words when they are strung together, over and over again. When it comes to Colonial documents, much of the wording is as repetitious as today's advertising. A list of some early lettering patterns is printed within this article. Some of the letters are easily read, with a little imagination; others will take learning and practice. Always keep in mind that the Colonials had as many flourishes for their capital letters as for their shirt ruffles. Very often, what appears to be a small e at the end of a word is nothing more than a flourish. There is no Ye Olde Gift Shoppe for scholars—only for romantics. We know that ye is a symbol for the and the e at the end of the word old is merely an added flourish; not a letter. In working with the vowels a, e, i, o, u, there is not much difficulty reading the first two in capitals. The small a may sometimes seem to be an o but it is generally recognizable as an a in its position within the whole word or phrase. For example, in the phrase "giving thanks to God," your good sense tells you that the a in thanks could not possibly be anything else. The vowel E is also quite recognizable in its form as a capital. The small letter e may give you some difficulty at first when it appears as our present-day o or, in some cases as GI almost a capital. Again, however, the sense of the word itself, and the word within its phrase, should guide you. Example: "I give and bequeath unto my beloved wife," is certainly not going to appear to you as anything else. Perhaps the most difficulty you will encounter with Colonial vowels is with the capital I. The lower case i is always distinguishable if — and this is a big if — the writer remembered to dot the i. However, the capital I is often confused with F or J or T or even Q. Here, again, your interpretation depends upon your confidence and good sense in placing the correct letter with the balance of the word or phrase. 232 Colonial Handwriting EARLY LETTERING PATTERNS .44 04, 1 A n The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine 233 In the left hand margin of a will, you will find the Latin word Imprimis —often written /mpris and it means "in the first place." Below this, in the left hand margin will appear the word Item meaning a separate article or particular in the will. When you have observed the capital I in these two standard words, you will then know exactly how this particular writer chose to form his capital I. The vowel o is generally no problem except where the small o may be confused with small e. Again, the principle of relating it to the total word or phrase applies. The vowel u is often confused with v — another hangover from Latin roots—but in such words as use or bounded or bequeath it is not likely that you will be confused. Among the consonants you may have difficulty with is the small c. This is often written like some of us today form our r letters, that is, r. The present use of the small d did not come of age until the nineteenth century. The earlier forms often look more like a stricken ringworm, p. or finally unwinding, like d. The letter g is generally recognizable, but f and h were victims of many artistic flourishes. The captial J is often confused with the capital I, as I mentioned earlier. If you're not reading a will, and you don't have the words Imprimis and Item present in your document, you may remember that the capital I of ten stands by itself in most handwriting and in a letter, for instance —a personal letter, that is—the I would be repeated often enough to become recognizable. Letters K and L are generally readable, but M, N and P fell victim to the flourishing goose quill. For the letter Q, in either form, be guided by the fact that, in English writing, the letter q is always followed by the letter u. This should be your guide. You will note that the capital R is subject to many flourishes, some distorting it to appear variously as W or K or H. This is sometimes more difficult to identify within a word, and the scholar must read a phrase or sentence before and after the one in question in order to determine that this letter is actually a capital R. As for the small r, you will find that, the earlier the document, the more likely you are to find this letter written in a form which would appear upsidedown to us, as The letter S is not as difficult to identify in a word as some of the examples on the Early Lettering Patterns list may appear. Again, try to identify it with a word or pharse. If "the ship set sail at sunset," you could hardly mistake those s's for any other letter. However, one 234 Colonial Handwriting form of s which does not appear on the Patterns list, is when the s at the end of a word is indicated with a mere diagonal slash, as in acros/, or land/. There is also use of fs to indicate a double s, as in across— across. It is doubtful you will find the letter t of any particular problem except if the small t is written, as it often is today, f, not fully crossed. The letters v and u are often hard to differentiate, except within the sense of the word. The letter X is usually clear in its capital form, but the small x may appear as an out of place c. For example, the word box may appear as riot; wax as wee This is an x, but crossed with a flourish. Once in a great while, the small y may be confused with f or g but that would depend upon its place within the word. The word any, for example, or the name Mary, would clarify whether the last letter was f or g or y. The letter Z is used so seldom that it is rarely difficult to decipher. The one area, in which you may have great trouble, is in deciphering names — because names are not as obvious, nor repeated as often as other words. But, in any document, a name may be repeated several times and, by comparing the repetitions of the name, you have a better chance of recognizing it. Or, you may recognize a few letters in the first version of the name; a few other letters in the second mention of the name; a few more letters in the third mention — until you are able to piece together the name Palmer or Wilson or Peabody, or whatever. As for numbers, you may have an occasional problem with 4 or 7 or 9. And, less frequently, problems with 3 and 5. If you are working in any record book, such as wills, deeds, court records, be sure to check the date with the records both preceding and succeeding your own document. Most records.were entered chronologically, and your record may be sitting between two records with clearer dates. I should mention that many Europeans, even today, write their 7s with a slash through the center of the vertical bar. I cannot impress upon you too strongly to acquire the habit of reading an entire document before starting to copy any part of it. This habit can save you hours of unneccessary confusion. You need the sense of the whole document before you can relate properly to any part of it. The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine 235 A stumbling block which you may create for yourself it to expect to find some consistency in spelling in Colonial handwriting. There was none. The Colonials did not have spelling bees, nor did they bother their heads about spelling the way we poor perfectionists do. They spelled a word or a name as they heard it. What you have to do now is reverse the process. You look at the word and, in your own silent hearing, you pronounce what you see. Since they wrote so many words and names phonetically, we must develop the fine art of phonetic reading. Speak what you see to yourself. Try it out on the words before and after the word in question to see if your version makes any sense. A real problem develops when you try to read a document in a foreign language — unless you yourself are very familiar with that language. If you are not familiar with Latin or French or German, or whatever, then by all means, find someone else who is familiar to translate for you. One area in which you are going to run into great difficulty is the area of personal letters or journals in Colonial handwriting. These are completely different from run-of-the-mill documents, in that we cannot anticipate what they are likely to say, and there will be little repetition in them. While they may contain a few clichés of their era, you will have to labor over each word in a letter or in a diary or journal. Another hazard you are likely to run into is that the Colonials used many, many more abbreviations in their letters and other records than we generally use today. And the trouble with Colonial abbreviations is that they are not any more consistent than their spelling. I have not attempted to give you a list of the abbreviations you may encounter, because they would be as numerous as the scribes or other literates who were using them. Very generally the use of 14 indicater per, as in pfonal, for personal. This form of abbreviation is known as contraction; leaving out one or more letters in a word and marking the omission by some sort of contraction sign or symbol. Another form of abbreviation, called suspension, was leaving out the final letters of a word and marking it with some sign — ite' = item, or itemize. A third form of abbreviation—one most familiar to you, probably, is the form called superior letters, such as yt = that, or w" = which. There is also a form used to indicate letters deleted from a word Colonial Handwriting 236 by the use of dots, such as Geo: for George—or a horizontal bar, such as Benj. For Benjamin, also the use of the bar to indicate letters missing, as comly for commonly. You will find that not only different scribes employed different forms of abbreviations of the same word in their different documents, but that the same scribe used different forms in one document. When you have a document or a letter or journal, you must take the necessary time to become acquainted with the man who wrote it and all his handwriting idiosyncracies. As I have said, he can't come back to change it now, so it's up to you to exercise the patience required to read it. (-Q•a)' 2,1:r; r7e,,,/ tageo-A.- 4,4 (2., ) tk; 444,1 to ./;.,.) e.9, •t.ert tifd theti"-byreta..1" o . h tts."...• flep ' A ought mAscr;ont It16Pf 4 a4.6. w„ L.. 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