Through Their Eyes...
ABOUT US
Legal Documents, Wills, Newspapers, Books, Letters, Diaries, Journals, Hotel Guest Registers...
They all give us glimpses into the past. Often showing events or people from a different perspective. Sometimes totally contradicting what we have been taught to believed is absolute truth.
My goal is to create a place to showcase my collection of documents and perhaps shed light on the dark hidden recesses of history and introduce you to the periphery of the famous events. Allowing you to put those major events better into context.
Perhaps you will meet some of the less famous players who, though long since gone, through their words or works... can live once again... become real once again and leave a mark once again... and let you glimpse the world they lived in... through their eyes
To Transcribe or not to transcribe
If a document is easily readable then I will not transcribe it. I prefer people to read it as it was written/printed. I believe you get a better feel for the document. Documents that are more challenging to read due to fading or other issues I will transcribe. In the case an individual word is not readable, I will put an (Illegible) in it place. In the case where I am not 100% sure what a word is I will put what I think the word is followed by a (?).
Left: letter from Silas Mainville Burroughs to Charles Frederick Potter dated December 3, 1833 at Selby, Orleans County, NY
Spelling, Punctuation, and that strange "f"
Exert from a deed that shows a decided lack of punctuation and the use of long s. There are also a few words that are "misspelled"
1760 Deed, Framingham, Middlesex County, MA,
At the time many of the documents featured on this site were written, The rules of spelling and punctuation that we have today were not yet as stringently taught or enforced. You will see many examples, even in legal documents, where, judged by our current rules, there is a decided lack of punctuation and MANY words are "misspelled". As late as the mid-1800s people often spelled according to how a word sounded to them, this was acceptable and the use of punctuation was often... optional.
One of the things that may give first time readers of these early documents problems is the use of an "f" where you wouldn't expect one, such as in the word Clafs or the name Wafhington (this was how George spelled his name). The letter of which I speak is not actually an "F" but a "long S" and is simply read as an "S" ("fh" is read as an "sh"). Because we don't read letter by letter but take the word as a whole this can make reading more difficult.
The use of "long S" in the surname Bass
From the Franklin House Guest Register,
Sept 1854 - April 1855