An inventory

[JenB]

And this bit too has a couple of blanks. I have transcribed these 4 lines as:

1.   Exhibited upon the oath of Ann Batchelor Widow Relict
2.   and administratrix of William Batchelor of Alfriston aforesd
3.   his late xxxx xxxx deed before us.         
                            Ed. Lund Snr.

Any idea what line 3 says?

her late Husband de[cea]sed before us......

[JenB]

There is another section of the inventory which is problematic:

I have transcribed line 1 as :

1.   The said Anne Batchelor doth also allege that xxxxxxxx of a best offer xxx proceeds upon the Estate of William

I attach a snippet

The said Anne Batchelor doth also allege that xxxxxxxx of about Forty pounds upon the Estate of William

[Mart 'n' Al]

All this work makes me realise just how incredible the human brain actually is. Even getting optical character recognition software to work on reasonable printed documents provides horrendous results quite often and yet between three or four people we can analyse that document. Plus we can boil an egg and possibly solve a Rubik's Cube. I'd like to see a computer do those three tasks.

Martin

[JenB]

There are many references to "Glass". I presume these would be windows rather than something for containing a fluid.

I'm no expert, but my feeling is that it is much more likely a household glass item rather than window glass.

A very minor point: there are several words where you've transcribed an 'e' as an 'o', such as coppors, boilors, barrols. If what looks like an 'o' has a loop through the top it is actually an 'e', such as in this snip

[londonscorpion]

I am not sure, Jen. I remember reading somewhere that when glass was first put into the windows (an expensive operation), the glass was often specifically mentioned as a bequest in a will.

[JenB]

I am not sure, Jen. I remember reading somewhere that when glass was first put into the windows (an expensive operation), the glass was often specifically mentioned as a bequest in a will.

Fair enough    Do you agree with the other items I posted on?

[londonscorpion]

An insightful comment, Martin. What's even more amazing is that we could do all those tasks at the same time! I don't think there is any software to do what we are doing.

[londonscorpion]

I do indeed, Jen. Pity we can't see under the blotch though. I saw a post the other day where a difficult to read doc with a horrible bleed through from the other side and been amazingly cleaned up. Wish I could get hold of the software that did that.

[londonscorpion]

I have noted your instruction on "o"s and "e"s. I'll make the changes.