Abbreviations on 18th Century Parish Registers

[Green Fox]

Just wondering if anyone can tell me what a y with a small c above signifies on parish baptism registers? I am encountering it next to the childrens names.

[CarolA3]

Hello Green Fox, and welcome to RootsChat!

It's hard to be sure without seeing what you've seen, but it could be 'y^e' which is just an old way of writing 'the'.

'John y^e son of ..............'  or  'Ann y^e daughter of ..............'  would be typical of baptism records at that time.

Hope this helps,
Carol

[stanmapstone]

Welcome to RootsChat
The Old English letter 'thorn' was used as shorthand for 'th' in 'the', 'that', etc. In the seventeenth century, the letter was written in a form barely if at all distinguishable from 'y'.
In documents Y^e is the, y^t is that, and y^s is this.
Stan

[Green Fox]

Thnak you Carol and Stan, that was most helpful and it makes sense now.