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Old Photographs, Recognition, Handwriting Deciphering => Handwriting Deciphering & Recognition => Topic started by: Berlin-Bob on Wednesday 17 August 11 18:21 BST (UK)
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This topic will include various reference works/links for help in deciphering and recognition.
Latin probate:
Several people have asked for copies/sight of the general form of Latin probate. These differ little in their wording, often the only variance being in the name of the person, clergy or judge granting the probate. A copy of the general form together with translation is posted here.
English Handwriting, Online course
http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/ceres/ehoc (http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/ceres/ehoc)
(link supplied by Jane Masri)
Paleography:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/palaeography (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/palaeography)
Palaeography: reading old handwriting
1500 - 1800
A practical online tutorial
Palaeography is the study of old handwriting. This web tutorial will help you learn to read the handwriting found in documents written in English between 1500 and 1800.
(link supplied by Veeblevort)
Court-hand restored;
or, The student's assistant in reading old deeds, charters, records, etc (1864)
Wright's Courthand Restored available as a free download (5Mb PDF) from
http://www.archive.org/details/courthandrestor00wrig
Lots of illustrative plates of different hands including Chancery, Courthand etc, but more importantly, an excellent chapter on contractions (abbreviations) many of which survived the handwriting styles in which they were originally used.
Can't rate this highly enough. It was the breakthrough for me when struggling with old
documents for the first time.
vv.
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