THOUGHT THIS WAS INTERESTING & THAT SOMEONE MIGHT BENEFIT BY THIS INFORMATION > >1. Jefse TURNER was born in 1803 in , , Vermont.1 1850 Federal Census (Oct. > >4, 1850), Rochester, Windsor, Vermont, LDS Film No. 444929 - Page No 30; > >Dwelling No. 230; Family No. 249. > > Turner, Jefse; age 47; occupation: Farmer; Birthplace: VT. List given name > >of wife & 6 children. > Hi, Paul and Mary: > > I have no connection with the TURNER family that I know of, but your message contains something that may cause (or may *have* caused) confusion. You transcribe the name "Jefse". I would be willing to bet a significant sum that the actual name is "Jesse". The reason is a change in orthography (methods of handwriting or printing) that very frequently puzzles and confuses 20th Century researchers. > > There are many circumstances prior to about 1850, and later in handwriting by an older person, where a lowercase "s" was written or printed in a style that looks, to us today, to be a lowercase "f". Like today's lowercase "l", and "1", the difference is not great. Depending on your computer setup, you may not even be able to see the difference between a lowercase "L" and the numeral one. If one is not familiar with the style, the error is easy and very common TO US TODAY. Be assured that to the people of the times, there was no confusion. What makes matters worse is that there were "rules" about when to use one form of the "s" and when to use the other; very frequently when two "s" characters appeared in succession, the first looks to us today like an "f" but the second looks like a "normal s". Go figure. > > To verify (or possibly, I admit, refute <grin>) my suspicions, go back to the original census and compare the lower loop of the character transcribed as "f" in "Jefse" with other characters by the same enumerator/writer that are, in context, unquestionably "f". I think you will find a difference. In the "s that looks like an f", in forming the lower loop the pen usually goes down, then to the LEFT, then up, then across the downstroke to move on to the next character. In a true "f" by the same writer, the pen usually goes down, then to the RIGHT, then up, then back left to "touch" the downstroke, before reversing to the right to move on to the next character. Whether this is the exact difference, you will almost certainly find a subtle, but consistent, distinction between "s" and "f" in all the entries made by the same hand. > > In printed material, usually before 1800 in my experience, the "s" that looks like an "f" to us today is easily distinguished from the true "f" by the lack of a crossbar. (Don't confuse the serif at the baseline with a crossbar; again, compare with an indisputable "f" and you will see the difference.) > > If one types "P" in English, it means one thing. If it is in a Greek language context, "P" is a capital "rho", the equivalent of the English "R". The fact that it looks for all the world to me just like the letter that comes before "Q", in the English alphabet, is of no consequence whatever. I should transcribe it depending on the writer's intent. The same rule is appropriate for English handwriting older than, say, about a century and a half. In this particular case, one may well be saved from inventing, for no good reason, a strange new given name "Jefse" when the owner of said name was actually always called by the very common name "Jesse", and when the census taker would have pronounced it "Jesse" himself. > > Hope this is helpful. > > Darrell > > Darrell A. Martin > formerly of Springfield, Vermont > currently in exile in Addison, Illinois > [email protected] > > > ==== VERMONT Mailing List ==== > VERMONT-L Home Page: > http://www.geocities.com/heartland/prairie/9803/us/vt >