Truth to tell, we are indolent. Excuses come with a glibness that is itself speedy but in all honesty, we have the energy level of a hibernating bear. Thus, we lean weightily on that part of the economy referred to as its tertiary sector, i.e. the people who do your homework for you.
As we have written before, paleography is not our strong point, so we were relieved when, not long ago, we were contacted by Linda Watson of Transcription Services Ltd. on the Isle of Man, the flag of which is too good to pass up:
TSL provide quite a range of services, including some genealogical research in the UK. Until recently, their transcription of old documents was limited to those in English. "We have done some work transcribing diaries from the American Civil War
for Harvard University, and many, many wills for clients from as far
afield as New Zealand," Linda writes.
Now, they also provide a service of interest to the French genealogist. "Within the last 12 months we have been able to add a service
transcribing Latin and French documents, which has been particularly
useful to a lady in Scotland who is researching for a book about a 16th
century gentleman who was a frequent visitor to the French court." Ms. Watson has just begun a blog about her work on old documents, which she began after she took a course from Liverpool University entitled "Reading Old Manuscripts". Her French documents specialist, Kristina, writes interestingly about her work:
"Working with old documents can be alternately fascinating
and frustrating – it's often both at the same time, for the very same reasons –
and their highs and lows are intensified when interpreting manuscripts penned
in a foreign language. For me, as a native English-speaker, this means French as
well as Latin, though neither would have seemed quite so foreign to, say, a
high status English ancestor with a court appointment, since they were the international
idioms for law, government, and diplomacy not only before the Reformation but
beyond. This may be why researchers of 'capital H' History frequently have a
much easier time of it than the family historian; such records tend to be
neatly copied out before being entered into the public record – settle yourself
with your arsenal of old language dictionaries, put the one listing
abbreviations top of the pile, and you're away. Though the individual MS may be
damaged, and you are constantly called on to decide which of several possible
letters is staring opaquely up at you (to ensure the surrounding word is accurately
expanded), at least the physical appearance of your cipher tends to be clear,
the document having been stored with some care. But such high status ancestors
are few, and early documents unearthed by inspired genealogists are generally
local in scope and execution, requiring the idiosyncrasies of an individual
shorthand – not included in any code-book – to be cracked and factored in. When
researching one's own ancestry, background knowledge of names and places (notoriously
the most difficult words to transcribe correctly) speeds up the task
significantly, as does a general sense of the document's context. Working on
assignment, one is limited to the information supplied on the parchment itself,
which may be an incomplete working draft, with the writer intending to fill in
details – as well as clean up his penmanship – at the fair-copy stage.
This was the case with the sample 16th c. French text
viewable on the TSL website. In life, the paper itself bears only minor damage
(fraying, an internal tear, some discolouration), but the ink has faded to
illegibility – the first low that I encountered. Fortunately, digital
photography has not only made palæographic work more convenient and accessible,
its use of ultra-violet light resurrects faded ink, is safe (without flash) for
parchment, which is happily all the safer for not being handled during the
process of transcription. First high, then, came on viewing the digital image, in
which the ink appeared a crisp, dark sepia – easily legible, if not for the
slap-dash, idiosyncratic, inconsistent penmanship, and the elliptical content,
as its writer failed to spell out exactly what it was he was writing about. It
is exactly the kind of working draft mentioned above, though Serjeant Boudet
seems to have devoted some energy to signing his name with elaborate fair-copy
flourish. Second and third lows, first smile. The highs which came with
cracking each initially impenetrable abbreviated word and phrase were higher
than if the job had been an easier one, giving the same satisfaction I expect
cryptic crossword and sudoku solvers take in their respective puzzles. But my
main enjoyment stemmed from travelling to a time and place I knew nothing about
when I began my assignment, provincial France in 1585, the writer Pierre Boudet
being a King's Sergeant, but "under (the) League", the extremist
Catholic Union challenging Henri III's tolerance toward Protestants with an
increasing violence that would soon result in the Huguenots' exodus to England.
A gripping history lesson, then, courtesy of a low-level local official, paid
one and one third ecu, who took pleasure in his signature, writing in haste to
report the advertisement of a forced auction outside the church of Bazoges. If
only he'd taken an extra moment to record what it was that he auctioned!"
The entire TSL service operates via the internet:
- send a digital photo of the document
- include a description of it, where it is from, any information relating to its contents.
- Terms agreed by e-mail
- Results returned as a PDF or Word file (or in the post, if preferred)
We have not yet used TSL, but we very much like the idea of those most difficult documents being made clear as day via the internet while we continue to snore in our cave. Should any of our dear readers have been so fortunate as to obtain family records from the Sixteenth Century and which they still cannot decipher, they may wish to consider the TSL. If so, please write to tell about it.
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Transcription Services Ltd.
3 Hilary Road
Douglas
Isle of Man IM2 3EG
United Kingdom
telephone: (+44) 1624 671591
fax : (+44) 870 8381142
e-mail: tsl@TranscriptionServicesLtd.com
website: www.transcriptionservicesltd.com
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©2010 Anne Morddel
French Genealogy
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