Hello there Mary I have a feeling that someone will disagree with me but most people I know transcribe ff as F. ff was the way of writing a capital. A number of letters have different forms for their capitals and you can get used to these. s/S is one of them. In fact there are about three different forms of s. R/r is another that has different forms. Then there's b/B, sometimes d/D, e/E, and many of the other letters of the alphabet. I have a feeling that there's a web site that will help you with these different forms. It's worth getting something you can print out to have by you as you transcribe. You also have to come to terms with how to transcribe u and i. These two letters present different problems and there is more than one school of thought concerning their transcription. u and v are often presented in documents as appearing to be the same letter. Many people transcribe all of these as u, regardless of whether any of us would pronounce them as a u. For instance, I can't think of anyone who would pronounce an underground chamber as 'caue' and most people would call it a 'cave'. However, there is a school of thought that would not alter the word caue to cave. You have to take your pick on this one. Equally, at one time there was not such a letter as j/J. They were all written as i/I but I can't imagine anyone actually pronouncing enioy rather than enjoy. I do know that there is a course on-line for palaeography. Someone on the list may well give you the reference for that one but if not, then key it into Google and I am sure you will find a good one. Good luck with your efforts. Audrey ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mary Seal" <mseal@sympatico.ca> To: <OLD-ENGLISH-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2004 12:37 PM Subject: [OEL] What do I do with that extra "f" > 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 > >