Some Remarks about Parish Church Registers, England early 17th century

I left out the Warwickshire page, so sorry -- https://www.geni.com/documents/view?doc_id=6000000177873751859

Anne, thank you so much for posting this.

As soon as I understood your background - and your enviable eyesight - I’ve been coming to you for interpretations of parish registers, and you’ve never steered me wrong.

My favorite was debunking a claim - that had been published in a book, no less - that a child in the Rolfe family in England was adopted by Elwyns. She was not - the Elwyns “bought” the Pocahontas painting. :)

LOl.

My favorite instance on Geni concerned a man living in the late 16th century in England who was supposedly named Ivan. I contacted the manager, asking what the evidence was, since that would have been a highly unusual name at the time.

The manager wrote back and accused me of being anti-Slavic, and sent the photograph of the register; he had been copying the transcription, but the transcriber was Wrong.

Not only was this man named John, but his last name had been completely mistranscribed, because the transcriber did not understand the abbreviation system.

Also it came from a parish which was very far away, but that's on the manager.

Be careful of transcriptions! Not everybody knows what they are doing.

This isn’t a celebration of Anne, but it’s a great “transcriber was wrong” story.

A couple of (American) Churchill descendants were working through their Y DNA connection and concluded they were likely from Dorset Churchill’s, and found through IGI transcriptions a wife named May. It struck them as unusual for time and place, and somehow managed to find the volunteer who transcribed for the LDS from the parish register microfilm. She had done the work in the month of May. Oops.

Lol.

Are there similar issues for transcribing 17th century Scottish records? Is some of the problem about handwriting?

I just ran across this:

https://www.scottishhandwriting.com/dunlop.asp

This tutorial illustrates the process whereby someone's handwriting deteriorated after they had left the watchful eye of a writing master. Different scripts (Italic and Secretary Hand) become mixed up and the writing becomes untidy and idiosyncratic.

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Also I have seen for myself “chatty” ministers in English parish records. Making notes about the weather or even the character of someone they just buried.

That’s a nice clear hand, even deteriorated.

Yes, any hand has 5o get learned. You can learn the correct forms of letters from online tutorials, but every hand is different, and sometimes the same hand differs over time.

Some of the worst and nearly unreadable documents appear to be written by Drunken Clerics From Hell.

But I digress.

Here’s an example. Up above, where I transcribed the line about Zachary Gibson, the word “of” was not recognizable. I knew it SHOULD be “of,” but it did not look right and I didn’t like to make assumptions. I looked over the whole page for similar forms, nothing. Went back a page. Then another. And there it was, the same forms but more clearly written. Yes. “Of.” Voila.

I have worked with Scots documents. I enjoy them. They are harder only because words are spelled as they sound to the writer, and they sound differing Scotland than they do in England. Of course, they sound different in York than they do in London, one of the ways we can tell where documents were written.

You say “nice clear hand” and I say, “no wonder I can’t read my own handwriting, it’s nothing like that.” And I actually was taught Palmer Script, unlike “these days.”

So I’m impressed.

Who holds the copyright for the documents themselves? I presume that’s different from any copyright held by a transcriptionist? And what about sites like Ancestry? I had thought they licensed collections, and may hire transcriptionists, but those transcriptions are open to interpretation?

Here’s about the volunteer “online parish clerks” who transcribe.

http://www.sussex-opc.org/

”An OPC researches all the available historical data they can find on a parish, and transcribes records which are usually made available on a web site. They may also (or alternatively) offer a look up service in response to an email or postal request. An OPC will never charge for providing this service, and transcriptions and access to on line records is completely free. This is a core value of the OPC scheme. …”

I’ve corresponded with the Dorset guy. Another did a fabulous biography of an important Colonial minister from his home parish.

The rights to the documents are held by whatever entity holds the documents.

They hold the rights to allowing photographs to be taken or used. If you publish work using documents, you get permission, and thank the record office, or library, or museum, that holds the documents.

Sites like ancestry are paying for the right to use the documents. That’s why it’s hard to come across free documents online. And they have transcribers — one of them did the Ivan with a wrong last name I mentioned above.

All of which causes me to think, well, how do you know when a transcription is wrong or right?

The same way you argue any other point. You show your evidence and use logic.

So for instance, someone might read the word “was” as “mab,” because that’s pretty much what it looks like. To show that it’s “was,” one would point to other letters in the document that are clearly the “w” or the “s.”

When I found a mistake in the antiquarian transcription of the Bassingbourn St. George play accounts, the misreading had been a good one. It involved an expansion of an abbreviation. The abbreviated word was “car’” and it had been transcribed as “cart.” So, therefore, the dragon that was bein* paid for with carg

LOL. So the service transcriptions, doesn’t much matter whether it’s volunteer or paid, anyone can make a mistake? And the best way is do several transcriptions?

Here’s a tutorial on “secretary hand.” Think I can learn?

https://sway.office.com/2il2mOAQ3Dr1sZeP?ref=Link&loc=play

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I’m reminded of a great article on the Three Mary Peases of Salem, Massachusetts. One had been transcribed in the official Vital Records of the town. A genealogist went to the Peabody Museum where the original documents are held, and a Margaret turned out to be a Mary. Earned him a prestigious journal article.

In other words, aren’t important findings peer reviewed?

Dragon??? We really had dragons in Medieval England after all? Don’t fix the auto correct! I want to believe.

Oh darn.

I finish

The dragon that was being paid for, with cart, was obviously being drawn around the stage in a cart.

But I had transcribed all 40 years of the accounts, not just the play accounts, and there was one place, many years distance, where the same abbreviation was used where it could only mean “carriage.”

The dragon and the transportation of it (from Oxford) were what was being paid for.

The dragon probably had wheels. But there’s no evidence it was in a cart.

Of course published scholarly articles are peer reviewed. (Ancestry is not that.)

But it would be impossible to check all transcriptions.

I wouldn’t bother looking at various transcriptions if I could see the document,

And the only points where it really matters are when there are disagreements.

Like if somebody says, Ivan? Really? In London in the 16th century? Or says that parish records don’t contain the occupation of fathers.

Good to see the document.

So this is a theatrical prop dragon for a play? I’m disappointed. :). But look at the detail! Immediately I’m getting a whole set of visuals - carriage, Oxford, play, prop dragon on wheels … OK. Read the whole context is part of what I’m getting as a needed point.

I had a whole long chase up of Rev. Denton, colonial minister, through all kinds of records. Do you know how common the name Denton is? I didn’t know but wow it is. But it was easy to find him and his kids, because he was always delineated as “min.” Or Minister. Every single record after he earned his degree.

Yes, Bassingbourn parish put on a very lavish St. George play, on scaffolds (which would have been in a circle).

The way it worked was you hired a “property player,” though there were other names for it — and that man supplied a script and major props (such as the dragon) and came and helped out the thing together. The parish clerk, in this case, “read the script,” meaning he read it out loud so everybody could learn their parts.

They had gotten subscriptions — front money — from a great many local,parishes, which they had been round to visit earlier, where they would haVe been announcing the play and probably giving tableaux.

The blacksmith made the torturer’s tools (St. George was a martyr) and they had ale, and roasted mutton, and chicken “for the gentleman” — I forget his name, but he was the parish manor owner.

All of this was going on because a nearby parish had a St. George statue and they wanted a bigger one. And that was happening because Margaret Beaufort, who had owned the parish, had just died, and the king, that being Henry VIII, had inherited the parish, and St, George, as we know from the surviving St. George plays, all from the continent, was all about justice, and that the king is subject to,the same justice he wields.

Says I.

That’s wonderful. Thank you, Anne.

That’s very sweet, thank you, Jo McArthy