Reading early writing

Over the years, the style of handwriting used has changed considerably, culminating in the 'round hand', we use today.
Example
Hand
Date
Caroline Miniscule
11th century, e.g. doomsday book
Book/Text
12th century
Court hand
14th century Court records
Chancery hand
16th century Chancery Court
Secretary Hand
John the sonne of Richard Curtis and Alice his wife. bap. x Maye
Secretary hand (bastard hand)
1500 -1650
Italic hand
15th / 16th century

Thomas wear and Grace Johnson marid May the 30th 1743
Round hand
18th century on

Let's start with the most recent - Round hand and take a look at what you are likely to come across.

This is a page taken from a marriage register and is typical of the sort of document you may find. Note the non-standard spelling which is not even consistent across the page - Patinson / Pattison and mariad / mariead. The page is written on irregular shaped paper and is unruled although the separate entries have a line drawn after each day. In the top right hand corner you can just make out a page number '32'. This was the parish's sole concession to the 1711 order that pages should be ruled and numbered. Other things to note are the use of an uncrossed 'f' as an 's' and the use of 'i' as 'j'

 

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Genlinks Genealogy Help

Reading Early Script

Subsection Links

Surnames used in examples