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  1. #1
    sueannbowen
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    Default Transcribing Wills

    Do any of you have any hints on the best way of going about this? I have about 5 wills to transcribe all from Essex mid to late 1700's / early 1800's and any suggestions would be much appreciated. I have tried keeping the image on the computer (for zooming purposes) and then writing the transcription by hand but then I find it hard to keep my place as I go along! I have fouind that if I have a first stab and then revisit later some of the words are a bit clearer but there are some that resist all atempts.

    One of the Wills I have is a daunting 9 pages long and the writing is scrawly so I am seriously wondering whether to use a transcribing service. Has anyone any experience of these companies? I have no idea how much it would cost but they offer a quote if you send the image(s) to them.

    Thanks in advance

  2. #2
    Name well known on Brit-Gen
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    If you haven't already, you might also try this.

    Find and open a sample document from a similar date to yours, and top left you will see a link to Alphabet. This identifies some of the common letter-forms which may appear in your document.

    Also, this is the best £3.95 I ever spent.

  3. #3
    sueannbowen
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kerrywood View Post
    .....
    Also, this is the best £3.95 I ever spent.
    Ha! I bought that when you recommended it to me a while back! The TNA recommendations from both you and Graham are fab though. I had not thought to break the words down by letters. Onward and upward but I will keep the 9 pager till later!

  4. #4
    Coromandel
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    A few disconnected thoughts . . .

    Wills can be quite formulaic so it may be helpful to study transcriptions of other wills of the period so that you get to know the kind of phrases to expect. Have a look here for many full transcripts, arranged county-by-county:

    https://www.
    willtranscriptions.co.uk/

    It may be helpful to compile a little reference chart from the words you can recognise, showing how the scribe writes each letter of the alphabet. Then you can tackle the words you don't know.

    There's a good book by Hilary Marshall called Palaeography for Family and Local Historians. Perhaps you can order a copy through your local library? You could also look out for a course on the subject. I rather jumped in at the deep end by going on a weekend course on 'Tudor & Stuart Probate Records' in Oxford: very intensive but well worth it.

    Finally you could of course post any tricky bits on here for the scrutiny of those who like a challenge.

  5. #5
    Brick wall demolition expert!
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    Quote Originally Posted by Coromandel View Post
    Finally you could of course post any tricky bits on here for the scrutiny of those who like a challenge.
    Last year I couldn’t read a will to save my life. I posted some images online of one particular will and Kerrywood and another moderator Geoffers guided me through the translation of each page. This was tremendously helpful to me. This is how it went:- I would make a stab at translating a page and then post up my poor efforts (with questions marks where I couldn’t make out a word or a line.) Kerrywood or Geoffers would then replace all the questions marks with the correct words. I would look at the words they posted and sometimes think - REALLY - but then I stared being able to figure out those elusive words for myself. They were brilliant and page by page I improved and could translate more and more for myself. A year on and faced with a will I can usually translate it tolerably well.

    So, if you want to try this method, go for it.

  6. #6
    sueannbowen
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    Thanks Coromandel - the Will site is new to me so that is a bonus. I am saving the posting on here bit until I am completely stuffed with nowhere to go! Peeps on here are so generous with their time I feel I need to have a good crack at it before I can call on them.

  7. #7
    sueannbowen
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    Good plan Olliecat - I may well try that approach but probably not with the 9 pager!!

  8. #8
    Newcomer to Brit-Gen
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    Will Transcription - Unfortunately this link no longer works. Does anyone have a new link please?

  9. #9
    Super Moderator christanel's Avatar
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    Hi Chrissie
    I typed willtranscriptions.co.uk/ into a search engine and this was one of the results. https://transcribedwills.co.uk/

    Whether it is the original site mentioned in the above posts?

    Christina
    Sometimes paranoia is just having all the facts.
    William Burroughs

  10. #10
    Newcomer to Brit-Gen
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    Hi, thanks for the above, I found this one too but it doesn’t seem to list by counties anymore and I didn’t find anything to match wills I have. Guess I was clutching at straws and asking too much :-) Many thanks for taking the time to look. X

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