TT in secretary hand, oh boy!

Parish Records and other sources

Moderator: Global Moderators

jennyblain
Posts: 342
Joined: Tue Mar 07, 2006 6:17 pm
Location: Dundee

TT in secretary hand, oh boy!

Post by jennyblain » Sun Feb 08, 2009 3:08 pm

Well! :)
I had found in SP the apparent testament dative and inventory of Adame Keir in Hugstoun (Huxton), from 1655.. After much thought, I bought it. And from the first words it's quite apparent that is not a testament dative after all. (I'd thought that it seemed a bit long for a TD, at 5 pages.) :shock:

It's a testament testamentar - in five pages of closely-written secretary hand, with the writing on the page behind bleeding through. The first part seems to be inventory but near the end is the actual testament, from which I'm hoping to get some knowledge of this person about whom I have almost nothing else - only a line of his son Adam's apprenticeship record in Edinburgh.

About two years ago I had my eye a bit in for this (thanks to the various bit of excellent help that are scattered around online) - I will have to recover that skill and may well be sending bits of it to here from time to time. And if anybody would like a real challenge and wants a bit of secretary hand to practice on ... let me know...!

So here goes... but oh, I'm quite delighted to find it!
:D

Jenny
http://wyrdswell.co.uk/ancestors

SarahND
Site Admin
Posts: 5647
Joined: Thu Apr 27, 2006 12:47 am
Location: France

Post by SarahND » Sun Feb 08, 2009 3:56 pm

\:D/ What a great find! You're very lucky, even if it takes a year or more to decipher it :? I'm in the middle of some faded ink with bleed-through from the other side 17th century French documents from Québec, so I fully sympathize!

Have fun with it!
Sarah

LesleyB
Posts: 8184
Joined: Fri Mar 18, 2005 12:18 am
Location: Scotland

Post by LesleyB » Sun Feb 08, 2009 4:31 pm

Hi Jenny
I'd thought that it seemed a bit long for a TD, at 5 pages
I have one (TD) at six pages - and a facinating document it was too, with a full inventory of all the household plenishings in 1793!

Have fun with your new find - it will no doubt be a challenge, but well worth it!

Best wishes
Lesley

emanday
Global Moderator
Posts: 2927
Joined: Tue May 30, 2006 12:50 am
Location: Born in Glasgow: now in Bristol

Post by emanday » Mon Feb 09, 2009 1:07 am

Hi Jenny,

I've been working on one from 1666 for a long time now. It's really slow going and I have to put it away when my brain starts to scream "Uncle!!!"

Luckily I use a very good image editor and have split it into one page (lots of pages with one line of secretary at the top) for each line of text with lots of room for notes and "guesses".

My son reckons that, if I keep going back to it, I will start speaking in secretary before long :lol:
[b]Mary[/b]
A cat leaves pawprints on your heart
McDonald or MacDonald (some couldn't make up their mind!), Bonner, Crichton, McKillop, Campbell, Cameron, Gitrig (+other spellings), Clark, Sloan, Stewart, McCutcheon, Ireland (the surname)