Try
your hand at transcribing document 8. You can print out the document and work through
it yourself on paper. A full transcript is available for you
to check your own work.
This document is written in a mixed hand, it has features
from both late secretary hand and italic hand.
The letters which are typical of secretary hand include:
- Capital 'C' of 'Churchwardens', line 26
- Capital 'T' of 'Thomas', line 8,and 'These', line
21
- the lower case 'c' used throughout, which looks exactly like a modern lower
case 'r'
The letters which are more typical of italic hand include:
- Capital 'A' of 'Andrew', line 13
- Capital 'C' of Carter, line 9
The lack of linking strokes between many of the letters is also a feature of
italic hand.
In this document you should watch out for:
Lower case 'c' which looks exactly like modern lower case 'r'.
Lower case 't' and 'l'. The 't's are sometimes not crossed, which can make
them look like 'l's.
However, you can usually tell them apart by the fact
that the 'l' is looped.

lower case 't' |

lower case 'l' |
- Names can be very hard to transcribe, because you cannot work
out the word from the context, and you can not guess how it would
have been spelt. You simply have to go through, letter by letter
carefully. If it is a list of names all written by the same person,
you can see if a tricky letter appears elsewhere within the document
in a more legible form. However, if it is a list of individual
signatures, each one will have to be approached individually.
[Tip: when working with original documents, if you get stuck
on a list of names see if there is another document in the series
with which you can compare the names – there might be a very
similar but more legible list. For example, when transcribing
this document, the name in line 18 could be
'William Daws', but we know from comparing it with another document
(E179/243/25 f. 263) that it is 'William Davis'.]
- Leave 'Berks' for Berkshire unabbreviated.