Gordon I don't know about old wills (which is what you asked) but in many of our old letters they often have an apostrophe before the 'd' at the end of the word, and it seems pointless to me, as if you put in an apostrophe, you may as well have put in an 'e' - things like dress'd, imagin'd So I don't know if this is a regular thing, or just an idiosincrasy on the part of the letter writer. Eunice in Queensland