Speaking of typoes...........

[IreneH]

Speaking of typoes - how the hell does Susan be come Supanna???? Must have been the same person who had done the census prior, he couldn't spell one daughter's name at all so just called her M. A. Very helpful! :mad:

Irene

[Mythology]

"how the hell does Susan be come Supanna"

Very easily.

Susan = Susannah or Susanna, which has variable spelling - in one nonconformist register which has six kids of my 3x ggps in, the same minister has used Sussanna, Sussana and Susanna for the mother's name.

Take the first of those - Sussanna.

Now imagine it written with the old-fashioned long s, for which I shall use the letter f here:

Sufsanna

The bottom bit goes below the line, of course, so when you put my "fs" close together, you get something which a bright young enumerator unfamiliar with the long s thinks is a "p".

And there's your Supanna. :)

That, I believe, is why William Debenham's daughter, Caroline, was born in the non-existent Surrey village of Chepington according to the 1851 census. :D

(Edit)
It's the same sort of thing, old-fashioned writing, as that Thomas "Hatcher" in the GRO index who I mentioned in the other thread recently. It will be a while before I can look at the parish register entry for the marriage to be 100% sure, but if it isn't my girl's marriage to Thomas Fletcher in curly writing then I'm the King of China.

[Rod Neep]

Any census enumerator worth his salt would know how to write (or interpret) the long s (fs).

Writing it that way was normal !!

It MUST be a modern transcription error.

Rod

[Mythology]

Obviously I cannot speak for Irene, as I haven't seen her one and it would need a study of the rest of the book, but ...

"Any census enumerator worth his salt would know how to write (or interpret) the long s (fs)."

The one I referred to was evidently not worth his salt then.

1851 Marylebone.
HO107/1487, folio 106, page 44.
Caroline's birthplace is shown as Chepington instead of Chessington. The p is exactly the same as in her father's birthplace of Depden, and if you go through the whole of that enumerators book you will find plenty of words with a double s, but not one single example of him using the long s.

So, "Writing it that way was normal !!" - not for him, and he obviously wasn't bright enough to recognise William Debenham's use of it on the householder's return.

(Edit - had the wrong folio & page numbers!)

[IreneH]

I think Rod is possibly right in this case Myth. Would they still have been writing in "old" English in 1871? If so then it will be a modern transcript error. Ancestry strikes again!? I've only seen their version.
But thanks for the info. I can see that I'm going to have to take courses in "old' English. :D

Irene

[GeoffD]

I think Rod is possibly right in this case Myth. Would they still have been writing in "old" English in 1871? If so then it will be a modern transcript error. Ancestry strikes again!? I've only seen their version.

I have seen the long 's' as late as 1881 Census at least. And don't get me started on Ancestry's transcriptions! I have found some right howlers lately. |rant|

(And don't get me going on IGI either, for that matter. Idly used Legacy's Search IGI feature for great grandfather Hall, and not one of the entries that came up had him born in the right place or in the right year. And yes, it was the right man - other info matched.)

[IreneH]

You have HALLs GeoffD? Where from? I'm Looking for a Harry HALL b. 1853.
Irene