Hi Walt, The first one in 1582 looks to me like Martha. But I'm not so sure about the second one in 1597, as it looks like Marthie so its probably also Martha. There's a really good book available from the SoG on old handwriting. I've just purchased it for an online course that I am doing at the Pharos Institute. You can find it for sale on the website and its called "A Secretary Hand ABC Book" by Alf Ison. Its by far the best publication on reading this type of handwriting that I've seen so far and I've done a lot of research on Paleography. Regards, Nancy Frey Newcastle, Ontario, CANADA OPC for Ansford & Castle Cary, Somerset Owner/Moderator of Yahoo! FULFORD_North Devon Group Owner/Moderator of Yahoo! DAVIDGE Connections Group ----- Original Message ----- From: "Walt O'Dowd" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2012 1:47 PM Subject: [SOG-UK] Deciphering a name in a parish register ca. 1590 >I have been taking advantage of the New Family Search website to look up > some parish records concerning ancestors in the Great Migration of the > early seventeenth century, and have come across one forename that has me > stumped. There are two records for the person concerned (a daughter of > Christopher Marche and Francys his wife of Runham in Norfolk); a baptism > and a burial. My best stab at the name is Vasthie (Book of Esther?). > The name does not occur elsewhere in the family as far as I can see and > she is the fifth child of eight, the rest of which are pretty standard: > Thomas, Elizabeth, Anne, William, Mary, Sara, and Christopher. > > The first occurance is in a 1582 baptism record: > https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-267-11577-18420-89?cc=1416598&wc=MMVP-4SN:293861336 > > The second occurance is in a 1592 burial record: > https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-267-11577-19344-70?cc=1416598&wc=MMVP-4SN:293861336 > > Any thoughts are welcomed. > > Walt O'Dowd > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word > 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message