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From: "Joan M. Wieser, CG" <>
Subject: Re: [APG] Convention of writing fs
Date: Mon, 28 May 2007 15:58:16 -0500


I'll take this discussion further back. I had problems with this a
number of years ago in working with German records in the late 1600s and
early 1700s. At that time I resorted to digging out examples of German
writing. Old German script examples showed eleven different ways of
writing a lower case "s" but when it comes to writing a double "s" I
found only one example. Yes, it does look like an "f" but if you look
closely the bottom loop is written clockwise as opposed to our way of
writing it counter clockwise. I suggest this is a "leftover" from those
days.

Also as to the subject of writing a double "f" as a capital letter...My
daughter's father-in-law, with the surname of Ffrench, would dispute
this. In his native country of Jamaica, he tells me that his spelling
of the surname was a way to distinguish between the two races in the
family.

Joan M. Wieser, CGSM

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