ffewell!!!!

[Susie1]

Hi all
Of all the variations I have seen on the name Fewell, this is the first time I've seen it spelt this way, ffewell.  Has anyone else.
I have tried to eliminate every possible other letter, that it could be, but then I found ffrancis, ffrances and then ffeb all spelt with the double ff.
This appears to be how it was spelt in Takeley in 1600's.  I have found eight + another possible one between 1676 and 1700 so far.
I'm going away tomorrow for a few days, but I will carrying on looking when I get back.
ME: Looks like they may have originated from Takeley after all.
Sue

[findem]

Hi Sue,
Judging by your post the Takeley PR transcriber has missed some entries, I can't find any Fewell 1600 entries in the transcripts, bit of a worry that    I wonder what others have been missed.
I have seen Fewell entries in quite a few PRs without sighting any ffewell but then I'm not sure whether I saw any Fewell entries of the 1600s period. 
Sue, when you have finished your searching do you intend to advise the Rev Laurie Bond of the omissions you have noted?

[Reggie]

Sue
See attached, could assist you.
Reg

[Susie1]

Hi Findem
Maybe he hasn't finished the Takeley yet.  I finished the first fische last night and I came up with 16 entries of which 13 were ffewel or ffuell.  This was C M B and there is another one and a half fiche to go on this.  I also have one and a half M ones and one and half C to go through all between 1661-1843, which seems an awful lot more than he has on his Takeley list.
Maybe he hasn't got all the transcripts or he just hasn't finished them yet.  Especially as he has added more since I first found the list.  But we have all been going on the list and if it's not complete yet, then there could be alot of names we all have been looking for that are in Takeley after all.  I've only been looking for Fewells.
Sue

[Susie1]

Hi Reggie
Thank you very much for that, it is very helpful.  Yes that is definately the ff on the list.  It has also helped me with a couple of other letters that I was stuck on, that kept occuring.   Do you know why they had f and ff?  Was the ff just dropped and f used instead?
Sue

[Susie1]

Hi all doing Fewells
You can see by Reggie's list why the Fewell's have been mistaken for Jewel over the years.    I will carry on with these when I get back.  I would love to know why they were spelt with two ff's and why it changed and also how come we havn't come across this before, was it just a Takeley thing.  Some of the entries on these fische have been written so clearly, it's just that none of them were Fewells, all the Fewell ones as usual are a struggle to read.
All for now
Sue

[Reggie]

Hi Reggie
Thank you very much for that, it is very helpful.  Yes that is definately the ff on the list.  It has also helped me with a couple of other letters that I was stuck on, that kept occuring.   Do you know why they had f and ff?  Was the ff just dropped and f used instead?
Sue

Sue

I think, and I am not sure, but the ff is for a capital and f is for lower case.

Reg

[Clincher]

What a fflipping ffix! I wonder what went on in the mind of the person who wrote out  that name like that all those years ago. Maybe it was the 'done thing' to be all flowery and flourishing in one's writing. I know I've been surprised to find some entries in my own research to have been made out in a flamboyant way that tends to mislead. I've been used to the double 's' being written out in the form of an 'f' in the middle of  a word but never at the beginning. On the other hand, even in modern times, I've seen the surnames 'ffitch' and 'ffoulkes'. Does that mean that they should be spelt and pronounced Sitch (quite a common name in Essex) or Soulkes? If writing is all part of the communication thingy something has gone seriously adrift.
But then all those years ago not many people were given a chance to read or write so communication was probably something that the scribe wasn't bothered with.
This matter raises another question: How should records be transcribed? Exactly as they are seen without exception or modified to take account of things like this so that 'facts' can be more easily established.

[findem]

Reggies post reminded me that somewhere I had a booklet on old handwriting, after much searching this afternoon I found it, the booklet also has examples of the infamous ff.

It is "A McLaughlin Guide" entitled "Reading Old Handwriting", it has 20 pages and covers 16th, 17th, 18th & 19th centuries writing, showing both various alphabets and extracts from documents.  The ISBN number is ISBN 0 907099 62 9, the author is Eve McLaughlin and the booklet was published by the Federation of Family History Society, it has 20 pages.    

Another useful McLaughlin Guide booklet I have by the same author and publishers is "Simple Latin for the Family Historian" ISBN 0 907099 84 X.

If written today I suppose they would be entitled "Idiots Guide to......"

Both the booklets cost a pound each but that was a good few years ago, they have an address for purchasing copies, The Federation of Family History Societies, c/o Bensom Room, Birmingham & Midland Institute, Margaret Street, Birmingham, B3 BS3.  It would be advisable to check out the address in case they moved.  They have quite a range of guides "Annals of the Poor", Illegitmacy, The Censuses etc etc.  I obtained mine from either the ERO or the ESFH room at the ERO.

Thanks for your post Reggie apart from solving the ff problem and reminding me to find my booklets ready for my trip to the UK, it also solved a problem of what the plural is of census, the booklet I mentioned above has it as Censuses.  I had wondered if it was censii, after all the plural of radius is radii, oh well another of life's mysteries solved.