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Old Photographs, Recognition, Handwriting Deciphering => Handwriting Deciphering & Recognition => Topic started by: dusty2 on Sunday 17 October 21 16:50 BST (UK)
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Hi -I am hoping you can help here. I am coming to the end of a very long transcription project, and there are 4 words in different places I just cannot make sense of.
They are:
1. Particular marks - I have: [can't read first word] bite of dog on left elbow.
2. Previous offences - I have: Stealing a bag containing [can't read] yarns, etc
3. Father's name and occupation - I have: Richard William Hampson [can't read word]
4. State of Health - I have: Frail and of [can't read] tendency
Thanks for any help
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1. Marks from bite of dog on left elbow.
That's the easy one.
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4. Frail and of strumous tendency
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2. spooling yarns?
JenB can you define strumous? The closest I got was strenuous which conflicted with frailty.
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Thanks, Maiden Stone - embarrassingly, I spent a lot of time trying, and failing, to read that. 'Spooling' is an interesting idea for 2. That 4th letter looks more like a u, but spooling would fit with yarns.
And thank you, Jen B. I've never come across the word before, but now I know, The ledgers that I was transcribing used to ask if the person named was scrofulous, but they dropped that question as it was never answered by Yes.
It's wonderful the help you can get, if you ask in the right place!
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OED has
Strumous:
Affected with struma; characteristic of or indicative of a scrofulous disposition
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I think the occupation in the third one could be drysalter.
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That looks very promising, Arthurk. The father was living in Bolton, and given the Manchester area's connection with textiles, that would be very plausible. Thank you!
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Well thanks to the people who responded to this, Maiden Stone, Jen B, and arthurk. This is the last stages of a project I started 15 years ago, collecting and transcribing information from a number of sources, and over the last three years I have been collating all this stuff and creating 1300 pages of transcriptions. I wanted to clear my list of queries to finish the job, and with your help I have now done that. So a big thank you from me!
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Well done Dusty2. Enjoy what you have achieved and what you might take on next! Good work.
Kit
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Well, thank you! Words of appreciation are always - er - appreciated.
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just a thought - sprouting yams? :D
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A definition of the occupation spooler is someone whose job is to wind cotton or yarn onto spools. (Collins Dictionary)
When I first read that the offence was stealing a bag of ..... yarn, I imagined theft of someone's knitting. :)
Are the documents you transcribed dusty? There's a website called Dusty Docs.
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There's what looks like a comma between 'spooling' and 'yarns'. I did wonder if 'spooling' was being used as a kind of generic, meaning miscellaneous items like reels or bobbins. I'm not sure yams were known in Victorian Britain, sprouting or otherwise, but an ingenious suggestion..
The documents I've been transcribing were certainly a bit dusty! I've been transcribing a lot of ledgers relating to the inmates of Saltley Reformatory, formerly in Birmingham, from 1848-c.1915. Several different series of information. I took several thousand photos of the pages and then slowly ploughed my way through them. It took a while...