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Old Photographs, Recognition, Handwriting Deciphering => Handwriting Deciphering & Recognition => Topic started by: Scrabble on Sunday 07 August 11 18:57 BST (UK)
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I am stuck on a word that occurs 3 times in this register and wondered if anyone else can read it please?
I am attaching a couple of instances, the first reads Thomas Petchie the ????? was buryed the.......
and the second Henry Cumbers ????? was buryed the ....
Any ideas would be gratefully received.
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Think the second instance is "fourth", doesn't look the same in the first one though.
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The word following the names looks to me like "smythe". The other unknown is the date when Thomas Petchie was buried, and I think that's "xixth" (19th), followed by "daye" etc.
Arthur
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Thank you. I have been rather stuck on the first letter being a 'P' but if it is an 'S' it could be Smythe as in Blacksmith?
I thought Petchie and Cumbers were Gentlemen so was thinking along the lines of it being the name of their stately pile or maybe their profession but can't make anything fit.
Scrabble
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I thought blacksmith was probably the most likely, but didn't say so because there are other kinds of smith too - whitesmith is one that springs to mind.
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Arthur I think you have cracked it. Here is another sample of the word 'Smythe' in the same hand. This time as a surname and the first letter is slightly different but the word overall is similar enough to be pretty sure it is the same word. I hadn't thought about there being different types of smith, it might explain why there are two of them at the same time in Blackmore which can't have been a very big village.
Thank you very much for your help.
Scrabble
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After a bit more thought, I now wonder if an undefined smith would almost always be a blacksmith, and any other kind would be described more specifically as whitesmith, tinsmith, goldsmith etc etc. I've no idea how big a place Blackmore was, but in a rural setting where horses would have been more or less as common as cars, vans and tractors are now, there might well have been a need for more than one in a village. (Or perhaps they were partners and worked togther.)
Arthur
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I think you are right. Although perhaps not as numerous as the cars we have now but I imagine Gentlemen would have had several horses and there would have been ploughing teams and the butcher, baker etc may have had horses and carts. Plus maybe spare teams of horses for the coaches that passed through on their way to London (or is that just in films!).
It was quite a small village. In 1841 there were 660 people, two of whom were Blacksmiths. There is an interesting website at www.Blackmorevillage.co.uk
Scrabble
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My deciphering of the documents as presented with your notes
Thomas Petchie the Smythe was buryed the fifth daye of Aprill anno xxxxxxxxxx
Henry Xxxxxxxx Smythe was buryed the fourth daye of xxxx anno xxxxxxxxxx
assuming the word in question is Smythe, it is possible that Thomas Petchie was a "smythe" and the other fellow's last name was Smythe as he is not referred to as "the" Smythe.
I would need the whole document to compare how script is written in this hand and compare the known characters.
I confess the scans you presented do not display very well on my computer, they are not very high resolution and appear as little blocks.
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I looked at this a couple days ago, and also read it as smythe. I read it as both Thomas Petchie and Henry Cumbers had the occupation 'smythe' - hence the lowercase 's' in both cases - while in the third (surname) case it is clearly an uppercase 'S'. I would agree that someone recorded as smith is more often than not a blacksmith.
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Meant to add my full transcription:
Thomas Petchie the smythe was buryed the xixth daye of Aprill anno supradicto [19th April, year aforesaid]
Henry Cumbers smythe was buryed the first daye of June anno supradicto
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Many thanks to all of you for your input.
I agree it is interesting that both references to Petchie are as "the smythe" and the one to Cumbers is just "smythe" but I am not sure about the significance of that. Anyway I am transcribing them as occupation smythe. It is always interesting to know ancestors occupations, so many of mine are Ag Labs that I jump on anything else with excitement.
Sorry about the quality of the scans. I have not had the same trouble when I posted before, they came out smaller but better quality. I must have changed some setting somehow so will investigate that for future.
Scrabble