# How to Read Old Handwriting in Archive and Court Records

- Author: Schema Law (https://www.schemalaw.com/)
- Published: 2024-01-12T03:25:01Z
- Updated: 2026-10-11T19:22:20Z
- Category: Handwriting
- Canonical: https://www.schemalaw.com/blog/how-to-read-old-handwriting

> How to read old handwriting in deeds, wills and court records: build the writer's alphabet, spot the long s and thorn, expand abbreviations, decode old dates.

To read old handwriting you cannot make out, stop trying to read it as sentences. Find words you are sure of, copy how this writer forms each letter, and use those letters to solve the doubtful words one at a time. Then deal with abbreviations, old letterforms and old dates as separate steps.

Lawyers meet old hands in chains of title, probate files, boundary and easement disputes, heirship research and old judgments. The skill is called palaeography, and public archives teach it free online. This post gives a working method and draws its facts from guides published by the US National Archives, The National Archives in the UK, the ScotlandsPeople website and a university archive. Records from other places follow other conventions, so look for a guide from the archive that holds your document as well.

## How do you read old handwriting you cannot make out at first?

You read it in passes. First look at the whole document to learn what kind of record it is. Then find words you can read with certainty, collect the writer's letter shapes from them, and apply those shapes to the hard words. Leave gaps and come back to them. Do not guess to fill a line.

A method you can follow at your desk:

1. **Work from a good image.** Get the best scan or photograph the archive offers and enlarge it on screen. Keep the original untouched and work on a copy.
2. **Identify the document.** A deed, a will, a court minute and an account each follow a pattern. Knowing the pattern tells you which words to expect and where.
3. **Find the anchors.** Look for words that cannot be anything else: the names of months, "the said", "witness", the name of the county, a party's name you know from elsewhere.
4. **Collect the letters.** From the anchors, note how the writer makes each letter.
5. **Transcribe line by line.** Type what you can read. Mark what you cannot and move on.
6. **Return to the gaps.** With more of the alphabet collected, the gaps shrink.
7. **Treat numbers separately.** Dates, sums and measurements need their own check, because context will not correct a wrong digit.
8. **Have someone else read it.** A second reader finds what you talked yourself into.

The US National Archives gives volunteers the same starting rule in its [transcription tips](https://www.archives.gov/citizen-archivist/transcribe/tips): "Type words exactly as they are written in the document", including capitalization, abbreviations, names, dates and misspelled words. Do not tidy the text while you are still working out what it says.

The stock phrases of legal records are a strong aid. The Scottish Handwriting guide on the ScotlandsPeople website, on its page about [Scots, legal and Latin words](https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/scottish-handwriting/coaching/problem-solver/problem-words/scots-legal-and-latin-words), points out that official documents follow a set pattern, with stock phrases in a particular order, and that this shortens the list of possible words. If you have a printed form of a similar deed from the same period and place, read it first. You will then recognise the formula when you meet it in script.

Verify the parties' names, the date, the price, and the signatures on an old deed. Read fee simple or life estate when the page uses those words, because marketable title questions later rest on that reading. On an old will in a probate file, check the decedent's name, the date, each devise, and the signatures with the same slow care.

When a word stays unreadable, mark it and say so. The post on [how a transcript should mark words nobody can read](https://www.schemalaw.com/blog/transcribe-handwriting-to-text#how-should-a-transcript-mark-words-nobody-can-read) sets out conventions for doing that consistently.

## Building an alphabet from the writer's own letters

Building an alphabet means collecting each letter as this one writer formed it, taken from words you have already read with certainty. You then compare a doubtful letter with your collected examples. It works because a single writer is consistent, even when the hand looks nothing like modern writing.

The US National Archives puts the principle in one line: "Compare similar letters in the document to help confirm that you are reading the text correctly." It adds that letters "will often appear similar or standard throughout a handwritten document by the same scribe."

Its tips page works an example on a business letter. The transcriber starts with "Dear Sir", because the phrase is used in many letters and holds no spelling surprises. From it they learn that this writer's lowercase "e" looks like a mirror-image 3 and that his "a" is open at the top. With those two facts, an unclear phrase resolves into "very lowest prices".

### How to keep the alphabet

Make a two-column table with the letters down the side. For each letter, note where a clear example sits and what is unusual about it. A cropped image of each example is better still.

| Letter | Clear example (page, line, word) | What to remember |
| --- | --- | --- |
| a | p. 1, line 2, "said" | open at the top, can pass for u |
| e | p. 1, line 1, "the" | looks like a small o with a loop |
| r | p. 1, line 4, "heirs" | two strokes, looks like a v |
| s (start of word) | p. 1, line 2, "said" | tall, drops below the line |
| s (end of word) | p. 1, line 4, "heirs" | small and round |

Those entries are illustrations. Yours will differ with every writer, which is the point of making one.

### When a single letter will not resolve

The Scottish Handwriting guide's page on [problem letters](https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/scottish-handwriting/coaching/problem-solver/problem-letters) gives three places to look within the text itself:

- **The neighbouring letters.** Identify the letters either side and run through the alphabet to see which candidates make a real word, as you would in a crossword.
- **The same word elsewhere.** It may be written more clearly on another line.
- **The same letter shape elsewhere.** Find the shape in a word where the context settles it.

The same page has advice for runs of identical short strokes. Such a stroke is called a minim, and the guide's page on [the letters i, j, m, n and u](https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/scottish-handwriting/coaching/letter-finder/letters-i-j-m-n-and-u) explains that "i" is one minim, "n" and "u" are two and "m" is three. Faced with a tangle, write down the same number of minims and try joining them in each possible combination until a word appears.

### A short example

In an 1840s will, Ruth Ashdown leaves property to "my son" followed by a name that looks like "Jarnes". The transcriber's alphabet shows that this writer's "m" has three even minims and that her "r" is a tall two-stroke shape found in "heirs". The middle of the doubtful name has three minims and no tall stroke. It is "James". The alphabet settled it. A guess did not.

## The long s, thorn and other letterforms that mislead a modern reader

Some old letters look like a different modern letter. The long s looks like an f. Thorn looks like a y and stands for th. A yogh looks like a z or a 3. Once you know these few shapes, words such as "houfe" and "ye" stop being puzzles.

| What you see | What it is | Transcribe as | Described by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| An f-like letter in "houfe", "poffible" | Long s | s | US National Archives |
| A p with a very tall upright and an open bowl, like an h | p | p | US National Archives |
| "ye", "yt", a y where th belongs | Thorn | th | ScotlandsPeople |
| A z or 3 shape in a word such as "Tailzie" | Yogh | as the guide for your record advises | ScotlandsPeople |
| i where you expect j, and the reverse | The same letter in older use | as written | ScotlandsPeople |
| A final j in a Roman numeral, "viij" | i | the number 8 | The National Archives (UK) |

### The long s

The US National Archives tips page uses a 1789 Senate letter that appears to read "houfe of Reprefentatives". It explains that the letter which looks like a lowercase f is an s, and that it is found in handwritten and printed documents into the early part of the nineteenth century. Its advice is to use context: ask whether the word makes more sense with an f or an s. It tells transcribers to type an ordinary "s".

The Scottish guide's page on [the letter s](https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/scottish-handwriting/coaching/letter-finder/letter-s-scharfes-s) adds that writers tended to use the long s at the start of a word and the short s at the end, and that a double s can combine both kinds.

### Thorn

The page on [the letter thorn](https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/scottish-handwriting/coaching/letter-finder/letter-thorn) says thorn "looks very like a y, and represented the sound th". Writers did not say "ye". They wrote "the" with a letter that has since dropped out of the alphabet. The guide's instruction is direct: "When transcribing a thorn, write th." It also shows short words abbreviated with a thorn and a raised letter, so that a y with a small raised t is "that".

### Yogh

The page on [the letter yogh](https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/scottish-handwriting/coaching/letter-finder/letter-yogh) describes a letter in Scottish documents of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries that looks like a z or the number 3. The page's examples include the word "Tailzie" and the surname Mackenzie.

### Whole alphabets that differ

Some hands differ from modern writing in many letters at once. The Scottish guide says that in Secretary Hand the letters "e, c, t, r, s, h and k" are significantly different from their modern equivalents. If your document is in such a hand, find a sample alphabet for that script and period before you start. Reading it letter by letter from modern habits will mislead you.

### Spelling is not a clue to error

Old spelling varies. The Scottish guide's page on [phonetic spelling](https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/scottish-handwriting/coaching/problem-solver/problem-words/phonetic-spelling) says not to expect consistency in documents before 1850 and notes that names of people and places can be spelt several ways in the same document. For a lawyer this matters when matching a grantee in one deed to a grantor in the next. Record each spelling exactly as written and make the argument that they are one person separately.

## Abbreviations, contractions and Latin phrases in old legal records

Old legal records shorten words, and the writer signals it. A line over a word, a flourish at its end or a small raised letter each means letters were left out. Transcribe what is written, and put your expansion in square brackets so a reader can see what is yours.

### The signals

The Scottish Handwriting guide's page on [abbreviations](https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/scottish-handwriting/coaching/problem-solver/problem-words/abbreviations) lists four ways clerks marked a shortened word:

1. **A line above the word**, called a tittle. It marks a contraction, with letters missing from the middle. The guide says the letters most frequently omitted are m and n, or er, so try those first.
2. **A flourish after the last letter.** The guide's example is "Test" with a mark after it for "Testament".
3. **A superscript letter**, usually the last letter of the word.
4. **A special symbol**, such as the ampersand for "and", or a symbol for the prefix "con" that looks like a g or q. The guide notes that this symbol was prevalent in legal records, and gives a court book margin reading "Dalrymple [con]tra Stevine".

### Abbreviations in American records

The US National Archives tips page lists abbreviations from eighteenth and nineteenth century documents. A selection:

| Written | Meaning, per the US National Archives |
| --- | --- |
| inst. | a date in this month, as in "the 15th inst." |
| ult. | a date in the previous month |
| do | ditto |
| Jno. | John |
| Wm. | William |
| Thos. | Thomas |
| Saml. | Samuel |
| Margt. | Margaret |
| Eliz. | Elizabeth |

Look at "Jno." in particular. The list gives it as John. If you expand an abbreviated name by guesswork, you may search a deed index for the wrong man.

The same page gives the rule for handling them: transcribe the word as spelled or abbreviated, "do not correct it", and if you wish, add the full spelling in brackets after it. So "Wm. [William] Harker" keeps the record and helps the reader.

### Latin

Latin lingers in legal records long after English took over. The National Archives in the UK says in its [beginners' Latin course](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/latin/stage-1-latin/) that Latin was the official language of documents in England between 1086 and 1733, and that after 1733 official documents were written in English. The Scottish guide notes that Latin survives in later records as legal jargon and in set phrases, giving "sederunt" for a list of those present and "summa" for a total.

Phrases from the UK archive's [lesson on dates and dating clauses](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/latin/stage-1-latin/lessons/lesson-12-adverbs-numbers-and-dates-months-useful-phrases-dating-clauses/) that mark the parts of a grant:

- *sciant presentes et futuri*: "know all [men] present and future", an opening clause
- *hiis testibus*: "these being witnesses", introducing the witness list
- *datum* or *data*: "dated" or "given", opening the dating clause
- *anno regni*: "in the year of the reign", followed by the monarch and a number

Knowing these few markers lets you find the parties, the witnesses and the date in a Latin deed before you can read the rest. Translating the operative words is a job for someone trained in the Latin of that period.

## Which archives publish free guides to old handwriting?

The US National Archives, The National Archives in the UK and the ScotlandsPeople website publish free guides to old handwriting, and one English university archive publishes guides to old dates and measures. They are written for researchers, which makes them practical. Use the one closest in place and period to your record.

| Publisher | Resource | What it covers |
| --- | --- | --- |
| US National Archives | [Transcription tips](https://www.archives.gov/citizen-archivist/transcribe/tips) | Worked examples of reading eighteenth and nineteenth century hands, the long s, tables, stamps, and lists of abbreviations |
| The National Archives (UK) | [Reading old documents](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/reading-old-documents/) | A hub linking a palaeography tutorial it describes as using documents dated from 1500 to 1800, a Latin palaeography tutorial for 1086 to 1500, two Latin courses, Roman numerals and a currency converter |
| ScotlandsPeople | [Scottish Handwriting](https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/scottish-handwriting) | Tuition in reading Scottish records of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with a letter finder, sample alphabets and a problem solver |
| University of Nottingham, Manuscripts and Special Collections | [Dating documents](https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/researchguidance/datingdocuments/introduction.aspx) and [weights and measures](https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/researchguidance/weightsandmeasures/introduction.aspx) | Regnal years, calendars, money and units of length, area and volume in English and Welsh records |

### How to choose

- **American deeds, probate and court records from the 1700s and 1800s:** start with the US National Archives page. It is short and its examples are close to what you will see.
- **English records before 1800:** start at the UK archive's hub and pick the tutorial for your period.
- **Scottish records:** the Scottish Handwriting pages, which also explain Scots words and Scottish dating.
- **Any English or Welsh record with a puzzling date or measurement:** the Nottingham units.

Then ask the repository that holds your document. A county record office or state archive may publish a guide to its own clerks' hands, or have a searchroom archivist who can read a line for you.

### Software

Software trained on historical hands can produce a first draft that you then correct against the image. The post on [Transkribus handwriting recognition](https://www.schemalaw.com/blog/transkribus-handwriting-recognition) explains how that platform works, from its help center. You need the reading skills in this post to check any such draft.

General OCR tools are for the typed pages around the old record, such as a modern abstract or index. Schema Law reads uploaded PDF, PNG and JPEG pages into text, and its [answers to common questions](https://www.schemalaw.com/#questions) say recognition is strongest on clean print and weaker on handwriting, with nothing marking a passage as uncertain.

## Dates, money and measures written in obsolete forms

Old records state dates, sums and measurements in systems no longer used, and these are the readings where an error costs most. A date may be given by the year of a reign. The year may have started in March. Money may be in pounds, shillings and pence, and land in acres, roods and perches.

The facts in this section come from English and Scottish sources. They apply to records made under those systems. Confirm the convention for any other jurisdiction with the archive that holds the record.

### Regnal years

The University of Nottingham's page on [regnal years](https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/researchguidance/datingdocuments/regnalyears.aspx) explains that some documents are dated by the year of the reigning monarch, counted from the accession, with the number changing on each anniversary. Its example: Henry V acceded on 21 March 1413, so a deed dated 2 May in the fifth year of his reign is dated 2 May 1417. To convert such a date you need the accession date, and the page points to reference works for that.

### The year that began in March

Nottingham's page on the [historical year and the civil year](https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/researchguidance/datingdocuments/historicalandcivil.aspx) says that until 1751 the civil, ecclesiastical and legal year in England and Wales began on Lady Day, 25 March, and that 1752 was the first year to begin on 1 January. In Scotland, it says, the year began on 1 January from 1600.

So in an English record, 24 March 1748 was followed by 25 March 1749. A deed dated 12 February 1742 was made in what we now call February 1743. The page advises researchers to give both years, which for this deed is 1742/3, and notes that many writers at the time did the same.

The same page warns about dates with a number or Roman numeral in place of the month. With March as the first month, its example "Xbre" is December, not October. The Scottish guide's page on [dates](https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/scottish-handwriting/coaching/numbers/dates) lists 7ber, 8ber, 9ber and 10ber for September to December.

### The calendar change

Nottingham's page on the [Julian and Gregorian calendars](https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/researchguidance/datingdocuments/juliangregorian.aspx) says Great Britain adopted the Gregorian calendar in September 1752, when 2 September was followed immediately by 14 September. Its table of adoption dates lists America under 1752 as well, and other countries from 1582 onward. Letters between countries on different calendars could carry two dates, which the page illustrates with a document dated "23/13" December 1688.

### Money

Nottingham's page on [money](https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/researchguidance/weightsandmeasures/money.aspx) sets out the system used in Britain until 1971:

| Unit | Written as | Worth |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Pound | £ or "li" | 20 shillings |
| Shilling | s | 12 pence |
| Penny | d | 2 halfpennies or 4 farthings |
| Halfpenny | ob | half a penny |
| Farthing | qua | a quarter of a penny |
| Mark | used in accounts, never a coin | 13s 4d, two-thirds of a pound |

The page shows the same sum written as "£1 9s 6d", "£1.9.6" and "£1/9/6d", and says that up to the seventeenth century amounts were commonly written in lower case Roman numerals, as in "ixs vjd" for nine shillings and sixpence.

Scotland adds a trap. The Scottish guide's page on [money](https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/scottish-handwriting/coaching/numbers/money) says that from 1600 one pound sterling equalled twelve pounds Scots. A sum in a Scottish bond has to be read with that in mind.

### Roman numerals

The UK archive's guide to [Roman numerals](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/reading-old-documents/roman-numerals/) shows the final i written as j, so "viij" is 8 and "xj" is 11. It also shows forms a modern reader will not expect, such as "iiijxx" for 80, which is four times twenty.

### Land measures

Nottingham's page on [measurements](https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/researchguidance/weightsandmeasures/measurements.aspx) gives the units found in English property descriptions:

- 5½ yards make 1 perch, pole or rod.
- 100 links make 1 chain, which is 22 yards or 66 feet.
- 40 perches (of area) make 1 rood, and 4 roods make 1 acre.
- The page says area measurements were often abbreviated with the letters "a.r.p.", for acres, roods and perches.

A parcel described as "2a. 1r. 20p." is therefore 2 acres, 1 rood and 20 perches. One rood is a quarter of an acre and 20 perches is half a rood, so the parcel is 2⅜ acres. The page also warns that older units such as the oxgang and the hide had no fixed size.

### A checklist for numbers

1. Write down the date exactly as given before you convert it.
2. Note which system it uses: regnal year, year of grace, or both.
3. For any date between 1 January and 24 March before 1752 in an English record, record both years, and check whether the same rule applied where your record was made.
4. Read each sum twice, once for the numerals and once for the units.
5. State measurements in the original units first, then the conversion, and name the source of your conversion.

For how these readings fit into a full transcript of a conveyance, see the post on [how to transcribe a handwritten deed](https://www.schemalaw.com/blog/transcribe-a-handwritten-deed).

## Try it on a real document

Upload a scanned PDF and export it as Word, a searchable PDF or plain text on the free plan. Your documents are never used to train an AI model. [Start free](https://www.schemalaw.com/api/auth/google)