Sunday, 17 April 2011

1700 census: Secretary Hand - help required

I have been working steadily away at transcribing the 1700 census for Ottery St Mary, and I have LOVED it.  it is written in Secretary Hand, and trying to work out what something says when it looks nothing like modern English handwriting is actually very absorbing.  It gives the little grey cells a lot to concentrate on!

Of course, there were bound to be letters, words, names and so on that I could not decipher.  And there are several which are making me frown at the screen.  But I am really stumped at one particular abbreviation that crops up a few times, and wonder if someone else out there can tell me what it means:


It's the first word.  Believe it or not, that is a lower case 'r', followed by a lower case 'p' - or is it?  the census itself only lists men and widows (no families) - so I wonder if it stands for 'relict of'? although in other parts of the document, widows are listed as 'Mistress Clode', 'Mrs Hues' and so on.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Ros,

    I think it is "ux Heriott" where "ux" means "wife" and short for "uxor"

    Google it!

    I can see how it might be an "r" but it is clearly a "u" to me!

    Cheers -- Randy

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, Randy. Now you say it, I too can see a "u"... :o)

    ReplyDelete

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