Have you looked at an old document and thought it must be written in a foreign language even though it was written in English?/p>

In Colonial America, letters were formed differently than in today's alphabet. The most striking difference is the letter "thorn" that looks like "y" and stands for "th." Thusly, the word "ye" in colonial writing is the word "the," and we should transcribe it as "the." There are double S's where the first S is written to look like a lower case F. Some capital letters looked the same, such as I and J, L and S, L and T, and M and N.

Words were spelled as they sounded and often written in a dialect. For instance, the word "jacket" is spelled "chackit" by a person who was raised in a Pennsylvania German community. Sometimes the same name is spelled two or three different ways in the same document. Webster produced his first dictionary in 1806, and it took a number of years before spelling became standardized.

Punctuation was usually omitted. Sentences ran on without a capital letter at the beginning or a period at the end. Capital letters were often used mid-sentence to emphasize words that the author felt important.

The style of writing changed over the years. In the 18^th century, a style called "Roundhand" was used. Before that, there were Gothic styles and italic handwriting and Court hand.

There are guides for people who are faced with reading these old documents. Kip Sperry's Reading Early American Handwriting is written especially for genealogists. Copies of the book are at many public libraries.

The University of Cambridge has a free electronic course about translating 1500-1700 English handwriting. It is online at http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/ceres/ehoc/.

There are 26 lessons ranging in difficulty from fairly easy to incredibly difficult (my words). For each lesson, you view a scanned copy of a document. You have options to view a transcription, show a lower case alphabet, show an uppercase alphabet, or take a test on your transcription.

The 26^th lesson is "The Inventory of the Estate of Richard Cox, Bishop of Ely," a document located at Gonville and Caius College. The inventory provides a wonderful insight into life in 1581 England. Items in the "Hall," included one Covrte Cupbord, Drye Fattes, one olde matt, and a ladder.

There are other Internet courses on handwriting. Links to many are found on "CyndisList," www.cyndislist.com/handwrit.htm. One called "Deciphering Old Handwriting, " by Sabina J. Murray, is an excellent reference. Here you will find examples of names and dates. It's online at http://www.amberskyline.com/treasuremaps/oldhand.html.

© 2002–2009

Connie Lenzen, CG^SM

CG, Certified Genealogist is a service mark of the Board for Certification of Genealogists, used under license by Board-certified genealogists after periodic evaluation, and the board name is registered in the US Patent & Trademark Office.