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I've been looking at the parish registers for St Giles Cripplegate in the City of London for the late 17th and early 18th century.  All of the baptisms and burials (but none of the marriages) have an initial next to them which is always either L or F.  It starts in 1646 and stops in 1733.  Can anyone suggest what this might mean?

It's too long a period for it to be the initial of the officiant, and I don't think there were any other chapels in the parish which this might represent.  The parish did span the City boundary, so it could distinguish the inhabitants of the City from those who lived without, but if so, why L and F?  I suspect it must mean something else.  It doesn't coincide with when duty was charged on baptisms and burials.  Any ideas?

It's either three or four letters.

The first is long-s.  The last is e.

It could be she.  I think this is most likely.

I'm not sure the first letter is a long-s.  If you compare it with the name Ursula in the next line, it looks much more like the l than the s.  Even if it is an s, it's hard to see how the word could be she – t doesn't make sense in that position, and an h would normally have a descender in this period, which this word does not have.

I also don't think an abbreviation of senior is all that likely, and not just because I don't think the first letter is an s.  It would be normal only to differentiate when there was another adult of the same name.  There was a younger Francis, but he was no more than 15 years old – probably quite a lot younger, as I have a theory that the child baptised in 1627 died young and there was a later child of the same name.  But the more serious problem is that I've not found the words senior and junior to be not at all common at this time in England – the more usual term would be the elder.

The father, Francis Stedman, was the vicar of the parish, and even if he was often absent (as many priests were), his name will have been familiar to the clerk who wrote up the register.  So I don't think it can be the case that this word is actually part of the surname.  A qualification or occupation seems most likely.  None of his other children's baptisms that I've seen have a similar word there, but there is a word there on Ursula's burial record (attached) which fairly clearly reads Cler with an overline denoting an abbreviation.  This word clericus was commonly used in Latin at this time to mean a priest, and the entry is partly in Latin. 

My best guess is that the word in the baptism entry also says cle^r with the loop before the l being a vestigial c.  But I admit it's not at all clear, and I cannot see anything that looks similar elsewhere in the register.  I'm not too concerned that it is written very differently to the cler in the burial entry – that was 31 years later and is fairly clearly written in a different hand.

Regarding the word before "and sicklie", if it wasn't for the fact that the word is not recognisable, I don't think there would be any doubt about any of the letters in the word, which are clear and exactly like other nearly letters.  I don't think the final letter is a 'd', even though that would make more sense. Nor do I think the first letter is a 'Q'.  I'm sure the word must say Ceasie.  It's not a word I've ever seen before but I can only assume it means 'seized up'.

Criminal registers for that period are available on Ancestry.  Using location as Cambridgeshire 1867-1871 does not show any entry for that name but there are 15 entries where initial were J S - Smith mainly but also other surnames beginning with S

Possibly not tried in Cambridge

Oh, I didn't know it was possible to do a wildcard search in Ancestry to find people with the initials JS. That's very useful to know.  Thank you.

I've just done a search of the criminal registers on Ancestry for Cambridgeshire, 1867–71, and got 18 hits, none with a German-looking name.  However they all seem to be records from the quarter sessions.  I can't see anything from either the assizes or the petty sessions.  I imagine cases at the assizes were rare enough that they're unlikely to be relevant here, but what about the petty sessions?  I assume justices of the peace had the power to imprison someone, as magistrates do today.  Are there likely to be any surviving records for the petty sessions?