MAESSEX-L Archives

Archiver > MAESSEX > 2006-12 > 1165022424


From: "John Slaughter" <>
Subject: Re: [MAESSEX] Understanding abbreviations.....
Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2006 17:20:24 -0800
In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20061201190728.0ca4b728@whollygenes.com>


Good evening, everyone. :-)

Along with our ancestors abbreviations were contractions. We are all
familiar with the word ye and pronouncing it as a "y". From pages 133 & 134
of Volume 1 of The Essex Antiquarian is the following:

"The article 'ye' needs explanation. It is really 'the,' and should be so
pronounced. The y in this word represents the Anglo-Saxon character which
was equivalent to the English 'th.' When the Old English black-letter type
replaced the Anglo-Saxon letters in the printing of English words, from its
close resemblance to the Anglo-Saxon character for 'th' the Old English 'Y'
was substituted for it, and continued to be so used so long that people
became accustomed to to using the y for 'th' in writing the article 'the'
and some other words."

To see the actual character, where I substituted a "Y," you can read the
entire article at
http://www.rootsweb.com/~maessex/EssexAntiquarian/Volume1/V1P133.html

For all these years the movies have had this wrong whenever they made a
movie depicting our ancestors form of speech.

In that same volume is an article on deciphering some of our ancestor's
handwriting. Go to http://www.rootsweb.com/~maessex/EssexAntiquarian and
look for the article on Colonial Wrting in the Table of Contents. Very
interesting and I've seen some of these in some of my research. Perhaps some
of you have been stumped by some of the "letters" in your many
great-grandfather's will. I hope this article will help you.


John Slaughter
In loving memory of our son, Brennan. 11/10/88-5/31/01.
http://john-slaughter.rootsweb.com/Brennan.html

MA-Bay-Colony & MAMiddle list moderator
USGenWeb County Coordinator
Essex County, MA - http://www.rootsweb.com/~maessex
Middlesex County, MA - http://www.rootsweb.com/~mamiddle
USGenWeb Town Coordinator Ipswich, Essex, MA -
http://www.rootsweb.com/~macipswi





>From: Bob Velke <>
>To: <>, <>,
>"Maine" <>
>Subject: Re: [MBC] Understanding abbreviations.....
>Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2006 19:13:42 -0500
>
>Jan said:
>
> >Does "ult." mean last month? So the newspaper published on Sept. 18 shows
>a
> >marriage that took place a month before, in Aug. on the 20th?
> >
> >I guess I'm actually asking what "inst." and "ult." mean in the context
>of
> >announcing marriages.
>
>Instant is the current month. Ultimo is the previous month. Proximo
>is the next month.
>
>A newspaper published on Sept 18th and referring to a marriage that
>took place on Aug 20th would refer to "20th ult."
>
>Bob elke
>Wholly Genes Software
>
>
>--
>No virus found in this outgoing message.
>Checked by AVG Free Edition.
>Version: 7.1.409 / Virus Database: 268.15.3/561 - Release Date: 12/1/2006
>
>
>
>-------------------------------
>To unsubscribe from the list, please send an
>email to with the word 'unsubscribe'
>without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

_________________________________________________________________
Talk now to your Hotmail contacts with Windows Live Messenger.
http://clk.atdmt.com/MSN/go/msnnkwme0020000001msn/direct/01/?href=http://get.live.com/messenger/overview

This thread: