Hi James, Many thanks for your reply. It has already been explained to me off list and as a result of that explanation I was then reading it as "MvijC" although the "v" looked more like an "a". But your explanation has an extra twist to it with the "jaj". I have now found a web site which explains this amongst other things. http://www.scottishhandwriting.com/cmDat.asp The example which was giving me problems seems to be a slight variation on your example and the example in the website but I now have the general idea. I still think it is very weird! Thanks again, Christine -----Original Message----- From: James Irvine Sent: Monday, May 14, 2012 11:25 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [DUMFRIES-GALLOWAY] Interpreting year in will What you are reading as MayC is the common representation in old manuscripts jmvijc, or jaj vjct, for the 18th century. It is a form of roman numerals: jaj was a representation of i m. James Irvine Date: Sat, 12 May 2012 02:13:13 +0100 From: "Christine Benson" <[email protected]> Subject: [DUMFRIES-GALLOWAY] Interpreting year in will To: "Dumfries&Galloway Mailing List" <[email protected]> Message-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Hi All, I have a will in which the year 1796 (I think) is consistently written MayC and Ninety Six with an umlaut (two dots) over the "y" as far as I can read and represent it. I have thought the "C" might be for "hundred" and/or the "M" could be "thousand" but that would give "MDCC" and it is not that. Can anyone suggest what it should read? Any suggestions gratefully received. Christine ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message