John, At 06:37 AM 8/22/97 -0600, you wrote: >Hi John Maltby. > >Thank you for the good work. > >Quoting you to the WASHBURN-L on 20 Aug 97: > >> The handwriting was changing during this period, indicating that >> entries were probably being made simultaneous to the events, and >> that a certain number of pages were purposely left blank for >> further entries. > >I was wondering about that; that is, is the parish record simply one >that had been copied from an older record, or is it the original. > >I suspected it was a copy when you mentioned in a previous message >that the clerk sometimes truncated his sentences when he got to the >edge of the paper. > >-- >John Clement, 6940 E. Girard 205, Denver, CO 80224-2917 >Email: [email protected] Voice: 303-691-0613 > > Thanks for bringing this up, John. At first I assumed that these were originals, but later became suspect, and am now almost certain that from 1538 to about 1598 must have been recopied into the book I am reading. In the first place, they would have been unable to accurately leave just enough room for christenings and weddings each year before beginning burials. There are no "crammed in" entries at the end, and there are no gaps at the end of each before the beginning of the next. Christenings are followed immediately by weddings, which are followed immediately by burials, which are followed immediately by the next year's christenings, etc. Although I am not by any means a handwriting expert, in my opinion the years 1538 to 1598 could have all been written by the same person, since the handwriting style is relatively unchanged, allowing for normal fatigue, quill wear, and paper decay. Of course, reading them on microfilm, I have no way of judging the color of the ink on the original, so I cannot use that as a guideline. I have therefore concluded that the early years must have been copied from an earlier book, which in 1598 may have been falling apart, and has probably been discarded. The fact that some of these entries could have been misread by the copier must be acknowledged, since no one would be able to copy 60 years' worth of records without a single error, and there may also be omissions, but this may still be the best that has been preserved into the 20th century. If there exist Bishop's Transcripts for these years from Bengeworth, it will be worth cross-checking. John A. Maltby Redwood City, CA [email protected]