You are transcribing it correctly put both "f"s in. It is not the transcribers place to adapt the text to modern usage. Cheers Guy Mary Seal wrote: > I would like some advise please. For quite some time now I have been involved with transcribing parish registers and bishop's transcripts. The advise I was given in the beginning was to trascribe everything as is. (not the "s" which looks like "f" though. Consequently I have been writing Frances and February as they were originally written - ffrances and ffebruary. Now I am being told that I am putting in too many "f"s. > > So what do I do? Transcribe as it is written or leave off one of the "f"s? > > Regards..............Mary from Ottawa, Canada > > > ==== OLD-ENGLISH Mailing List ==== > Going away for a while? > Don't forget to UNSUBSCRIBE! > OLD-ENGLISH-L-request@rootsweb.com > > -- Wakefield, England http://freespace.virgin.net/guy.etchells The site that gives you facts not promises! I use CDs produced by Archive CD Books to assist fellow researchers http://www.archivecdbooks.org http://www.framland.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ Worldwide Cemetery Links, Monumental Inscriptions, War Graves, etc.

Hi Guy >>You are transcribing it correctly put both "f"s in. It is not the transcribers place to adapt the text to modern usage.<< While I would wholeheartedly agree with you, in this case the "old" usage is a captial "F" which looks like a "ff" to us. So transcribing it as "ff" is adapting it to modern usage! You only have to look at old alphabets produced at the time to see that this is so. If you wish I'll send you a scan. Cheers Polly

In message <403E34BD.4000004@virgin.net>, Guy Etchells <guy.etchells@virgin.net> writes >You are transcribing it correctly put both "f"s in. >It is not the transcribers place to adapt the text to modern usage. but an ff IS a capital F. So you consider that a WW should be written as uu, or rather Vu, because that is how it was written? Next thing, you will be suggesting that the long s should be written as a f, because it looks like one. Must use common sense and not self conscious archaism -- Eve McLaughlin Author of the McLaughlin Guides for family historians Secretary Bucks Genealogical Society

Yes I agree the "ff" was used as a capital F but that was not the issue, the questioner did not ask what does "ff" mean. I believe a transcriber should copy what is written, that way there is one less chance of an error creeping in. Incidentally transcripts written exactly as the originals will have more clues to enable them to be read in twenty or thirty years time, when the pencil has faded, than transcripts where interpretation and common sense has been used. Cheers Guy Eve McLaughlin wrote: > In message <403E34BD.4000004@virgin.net>, Guy Etchells > <guy.etchells@virgin.net> writes > >>You are transcribing it correctly put both "f"s in. >>It is not the transcribers place to adapt the text to modern usage. > > but an ff IS a capital F. > So you consider that a WW should be written as uu, or rather Vu, because > that is how it was written? Next thing, you will be suggesting that the > long s should be written as a f, because it looks like one. Must use > common sense and not self conscious archaism > -- Wakefield, England http://freespace.virgin.net/guy.etchells The site that gives you facts not promises! http://www.archivecdbooks.org Producing over 1000 old books on CD to assist family historians http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~framland/framland/york.htm Yorkshire transcripts

It is all well and good to transcribe exactly what is written if you are doing it by hand but I am transcribing some letters that have some peculiar little curliques on the end of, usually abbreviations or number dates, words that there are nothing even remotely resembling them on the computer. So I just do the best I can. Now I have a question. What do you do if a word has been crossed out in a letter? I can't find any way to "line through" on my computer like I could on a typewriter. Most of the crossed out material is just a botched word or misspelling that he starts over and I just ignore it but don't know if that's what I should do or not. Ruth At 9:44 AM +0000 2/27/04, Guy Etchells wrote: >Yes I agree the "ff" was used as a capital F but that was not the issue, >the questioner did not ask what does "ff" mean. > >I believe a transcriber should copy what is written, that way there is >one less chance of an error creeping in. > >Incidentally transcripts written exactly as the originals will have more >clues to enable them to be read in twenty or thirty years time, when the >pencil has faded, than transcripts where interpretation and common sense >has been used. >Cheers >Guy -- Ruth Barton mrgjb@sover.net Dummerston, VT

In message <a04310104bc651ed70434@[216.114.174.246]>, Ruth Barton <mrgjb@sover.net> writes >It is all well and good to transcribe exactly what is written if you are >doing it by hand but I am transcribing some letters that have some peculiar >little curliques on the end of, usually abbreviations or number dates, >words that there are nothing even remotely resembling them on the >computer. So I just do the best I can. > >Now I have a question. What do you do if a word has been crossed out in a >letter? Put in in place within double brackets (( )) or { } brackets - as long as you explain at the front of your transcript what this means. Save square brackets [ ] for glosses, where the trasncriber adds some comment or remark. Just once in a blue moon, first thoughts were better thoughts or at least thoughts worth having -- Eve McLaughlin Author of the McLaughlin Guides for family historians Secretary Bucks Genealogical Society