Genealogy Chat

Good luck with those!

When I'm not quite so busy I must go and have another bash at my really tricky will. It's in Latin so I have to try to write the words as I see them then hope to use a dictionary eventually to translate it. But having failed Latin O level I am not expecting miracles! I was better at the Latin to English than the other way round but that was nearly 40 years ago!

It's not desperate though as it won't break down any brick walls.

Sue
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I've found the Oxfordshire Family History Society have a load of transcribed wills on their website, oxfordshirefhs.org.uk. If I'm struggling with a word or phrase I have a look at a few random wills on there for around the same year and can often find what I'm looking for.

Alison

I'm going to bookmark this. I have seven wills that I've had a crack at but there are certain passages that I just can't decipher.

Sue you're a star. I've got 3 wills I'm trying to decipher at the moment (between tearing my hair out) so shall try your tips. Thank you very much

Barb

Brilliant advice Sue.

And if I may add another tip....

Using the tracing paper method, try turning it upside down when you get to the point that you really can't read a word/s.

By doing that you stop trying to 'read' word/s and are just looking at the formation of the letters. It is suprising how often the shape of individual letters suddenly match those previously identified and words leap off the page!

Chris

Very good advise there Sue many thanks ;;

Babs

Some time ago I had downloaded an old will from the National Archives and it was really hard to read. This is how I managed to work it out.

First of all it's worth learning a bit about old writing. These sites are really good.
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/palaeography/
http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/ceres/ehoc/
http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~oel/handwriting.html
http://paleo.anglo-norman.org/medfram.html

Next I printed out the will as large as I could and still clearly legible. We have an A3 printer but you could enlarge it onto several A4 sheets or get it photocopied bigger perhaps.

I got some large sheets of tracing paper. I have some draughtman's type sheets like technical artists or architects use but any sheets of good tracing paper you can see through are fine.

I attached a sheet of the tracing paper to the top of the printed will so it wouldn't slip but I could flip it up and look under for checking.

Then I used a pencil to write in words on the tracing paper as I worked them out. This avoids the problem of losing where you've got to and worrying about copying it onto another sheet of paper. You also don't have to worry at all about the meanings of any words or phrases to begin with.

I had it out on a table for several days and just looked at it from time to time comparing it with a sheet of the right sort of writing style. Eventually I managed to put most of the words in then could use the context to attempt to work out the rest. A magnifying glass is helpful to look really closely.

Finally when the tracing paper top copy was all done to the best of my ability I simply read the words and typed them into a word document as a transcription.

Hope that helps

Sue