When Joshua Hoopes came to America he brought a certificate with him and it was recorded by Friends in Bucks county.One of the signers of said certificate was an Ar:Stringer Does anyone know what the Ar: means or is it an abreviation of a first name? There is one other name that uses the same format ie: Chris:Stockton This was in 1683.Did they use colons after an abreviation whereas we use a period today? Visit The George Smedley Homepage http://smedley.lewis.home.att.net

Have you seen the original of the certificate record with Chris:Stocton? Without seeing the original using the :, I wouldn't assume that it actually appears in the original. With transcriptions, many put in punctuation...commas, apostrophizes, etc, that don't actually appear in the original doc...for the sake of clarity. I looked in lists of all the meeting abbreviations in Hinshaw, and it is not used by any, in their meeting records, as what we could call a "Quaker abbreviation".....like dm or recrq....and, Ar did not appear in any of the records in Hinshaw, in any way...so, whatever it is, it wasn't commonly used. I read somewhere that it was an abbreviation for Alexander, but I've had that name many times in local records....some abbreviated as Alex....but none as Ar. I'd think it might be Arthur, but that's strictly a guess. Unfortunately I've seen relatively few original MM records, so have no answer for the use of : I googled punctuation and found the following site.... and : was used, although not, apparently, to indicate something is an abbreviation....but, in those days, I'm sure folks and very 'personal 'ways of punctuation things. http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~wilkins/writing/Resources/essays/punctuation_hist.html Sandra "When Joshua Hoopes came to America he brought a certificate with him and it was recorded by Friends in Bucks county.One of the signers of said certificate was an Ar:Stringer Does anyone know what the Ar: means or is it an abreviation of a first name? There is one other name that uses the same format ie: Chris:Stockton This was in 1683.Did they use colons after an abreviation whereas we use a period today?"