Reading the Original: Deciphering old documents

For our first talk of meteorological Spring, on 18th March we were delighted to welcome ‘virtual’ guest Jackie Depelle from her home in West Yorkshire.  A well-known family history tutor and speaker, the subject of Jackie’s talk was close to the hearts of many in the audience who have struggled to decipher old documents and, as a result, have missed out on the often valuable genealogical information they contain.

Starting with some examples of how commonplace records, such as birth, marriage and death certificates, Census schedules and Parish Registers can present their own palaeographic challenges, Jackie then moved on to consider the more taxing conundrums posed by Wills, title deeds and pre-1733 documents executed in Latin.

However, whatever the nature of the record, Jackie suggested that effective deciphering could be achieved by following some well-established principles.  More specifically:

— read through the whole document quickly in order to establish context;
— go back and start reading again, but focusing on the shape of individual letters, not words;
— compile an alphabet for the subject document, based upon letters that it is possible to read in certain words — then apply the alphabet to letters in words that are proving more difficult.
— use memory triggers to help you recognise letter forms that differ from those in modern-day usage.  For example, remember that an ‘old-fashioned’ letter ‘c’ can look like an ‘r’ and use the memory trigger ‘cat not rat’.  Equally, have a mental picture of the letter ‘e’ as an Easter egg when transcribing a document written in 16th century secretary hand.
— become familiar with common abbreviations used to help cut down on paper.  Examples include ‘pd’ for ‘paid’, ‘matie’ for ‘majestie’, ‘pish’ for ‘parish’ and ‘Michas’ for ‘Michaelmas’.
— recognise that the structure and content of old documents, including those in Latin, is highly formulaic, so it can be worth referring to a document that has already been transcribed when starting work on a new specimen of the same type.  Wills are a particularly good example.

Throughout her well-structured presentation, Jackie displayed a broad range of documents to reinforce the ‘learning points’, including nursery rhymes and an amusing recipe for ‘six mince pies of indifferent bignesse’.  She also referenced a number of texts for those keen to learn more, and had prepared a useful handout for circulation to the Group’s members.  All in all an enlightening and highly entertaining talk enjoyed by all those attending in person or the ‘Zoomers’, as Jackie referred to them.

Chris Broom
Chairman