Hello Margo & Prof. Rosenthal: I am an undergrad student (psychology & philosophy) also am involved (past 20 yrs) in personal genealogical research and,in my humble opinion, it would be unforgivable when doing 'scholarly transcriptions' of old documents to in any way, attempt to alter or *modernize* any part of them. A glossary re abbreviation(s)/terms/spelling etc., as proposed by some others responding to your request, might be the solution for anyone doing research &/or study. This *is* a common format used in many/most texts to assure retaining the original. I firmly believe that the old documentation(s) should be retained exactly as it was originally presented. This, to me, is genuinely *preserving* history. To modernize &/or take out of context, for anyone's 'convenience', would be most unacceptable in my mind. Bev ----- Original Message ----- From: "Margo Burns" <margo@ogram.org> To: <SALEM-WITCH-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2003 11:00 AM Subject: [SALEM-WITCH-L] Your help is needed! > Hello all! > > Some of you may already know this, but for those who don't, I am part > of an international team producing a new edition of scholarly > transcriptions of the nearly 900 original legal papers of the Salem > witch hunt, due to be published in the next few years by Cambridge > University Press. > > Work on the edition is at a turning point. The first pass at > transcribing the documents has basically been completed, and as we go > through the second pass some preliminary decisions need to be continued > or revised. There is no consensus among the group of transcribers, and > Prof. Bernard Rosenthal, the editor-in-chief, needs to make a decision > as to the final choice. Thus, he has asked me to pass along this > request for input, since we assume that the subscribers to this list > are among the folks who will take a keen interest in the volume when it > is published. > > As of now, the transcriptions generally follow seventeenth-century > usage, including: > > 1) Abbreviations. There is a plentiful occurrence of y-superscript-e > for "the," y-superscript-t for "that," etc. The letter "y" used this > way is referred to as "thorn" by some, and represents the "th" sound, > not a "y" sound. Also, a macron -- a line over a letter or two -- was a > common abbreviation indicator, while the modern apostrophe abbreviation > ("don't") was not. > > 2) Superscripts. Other abbreviations include some of the letters in > superscript, such as W-superscript-m for "William," and > Maj-superscript-ties for "Majesties." For comparison, these are > rendered in the transcriptions published by Boyer & Nissenbaum in 1977 > with an apostrophe, as "W'm" without the superscript and "Maj'ties." > > 3) Retaining letters v, i, and ff. In older handwriting, the pair of > "u" and "v" used the same letter-form, as did the pair "i" and "j". In > our current transcriptions, an effort has been made to identify exactly > which letter-form was used, so in some cases, the word "used," might be > transcribed as "vsed," "just" might be transcribed as "ivst," and > "John" could be "Iohn." Also, a common form of the capital "F" in > handwriting at the time was rendered as two lower-case case f's: "ff" > -- so that the name of the country "France" was sometimes spelled > "ffrance." > > A decision needs to be made as to whether to stay with our current > literal transcriptions, modernize it all, or modernize some while > retaining some seventeenth-century forms. A leading possibilty for this > third option would be to retain superscripts and abbreviations, > including "thorn," while modernizing v, i, and ff as u, j, and F. > > Our team includes people from the disciplines of language studies and > history. Bernie believes that historians using the volume would not > have a problem with seventeenth-century forms, but a more general > audience might. This audience would draw primarily from those who have > a serious, though not professional, historical interest in the > documents, including the large number of descendants interested in > doing research: you! It would also include students making use of the > materials. He is not worried about graduate students, but he is > uncertain as to how undergraduates would do with seventeenth-century > forms. > > He is collecting opinions from the both the academic community and this > list on this issue with the full awareness that he may not get > unanimity of opinion. He hopes nobody will be offended if the edition > finally comes out without following the advice of a given individual. > He is getting all kinds of intelligent, reasonable arguments for all > kinds of routes to follow on this issue, and takes all considered > opinions very seriously, as he certainly will yours. Please let Bernie > (berrosenthal@aol.com) or me (margo@ogram.org) know your thoughts. If > you need clarification on any of the issues, please don't hesitate to > let me know. > > Thank you very much from both of us in advance for your help. > > Cheers, > Margo >