Transcriptions enter the picture about week 3-4 (just kidding) of the genealogists' life. Transcribing, currently, means taking a handwritten document, often long and/or legal and/or written under a time crunch or duress (like a diary during a war), and turning this 18th or 19th century piece of writing into typescript. This is a useful skill. Those in your family who you want to ooooh and aaaah about your work can read typescript. You may even find it easier to do analytical work when you can skim the document.
SIDEBAR: Do you remember from Upstairs, Downstairs that the person who did the typing was referred to as the Typewriter? As in "I'll have the typewriter take care of this." Did you ever read "Bartelby the Scrivener" by Melville (of Moby Dick fame) who was essentially human carbon paper? He sat all day in the lawyer's office and made 2 copies of every legal document: original (written by lawyer) stayed in the office, copy 1 for party of the first part, copy 2 for party of the 2nd part.
So transcribing/copywork has a long and august history, even though Bartleby is a bit creepy. So not too shabby.
For the record, in April 2021, there are some prevailing conventions about transcriptions. One such convention is that each typed line will change to the next exactly where the handwrit changed, regardless that type usually takes less width than handwrit. So... to match line length one does a hard return to move down to the next line, and then the smart/dumb computer automatically capitalizes the first word. If you type as normal and put in the hard returns when finished typing, the auto-cap does not engage, but it is "forever" to get that right, and quite fiddly, and while I'm sure there is a command somewhere in Word to turn this "auto cap on hard return" off, I have yet to find... hence...
My first solution was to type the first letter of each line twice, and then go back through and delete the first letter. It works, but it is still a bit fiddly. My current working solution is less so, and follows.
TIP: My current workaround.... type as normal, but when done typing the last word in the handwrit line, put in a space, type some symbol not in the document (I use the straight up-down line) "|" and space again -- and proceed typing. When done typing, go through the document and insert a hard return at the "|" so it remains the last or the first character in each line, then go through again and delete the symbol. For what it's worth, I find it easier and faster to remove when it is the last character on the line rather than the first. Also, one has only to remove the symbol, and not also the space after the symbol.
MUSINGS - regarding capitals: So far, most of the documents I have transcribed are from the 19th century, with one or two from the 18th. The capitalization in 18-19th century handwrit documents does not match current English usage. Current English capitalizes proper names, places and some other things, like "English." By contrast, contemporary German capitalizes many (most? all?) nouns. The more transcriptions I do, the more I wonder if the capitalization was to increase readibility, especially when the handwrit was done rapidly and without modern fountain pens. I use a fountain pen, and when writing rapidly, my script takes on characteristics that I see in 19th century handwrit. My lowercase 'r' resembles a 'v'; in 'the' the cross of the 't' starts the loop of the 'h' and the 'e' is often not rounded enough to be open. My last name, Ross, as I sign it, could be read as Rorr, Ron, or Roir, but if we still used the 'long s' as the first 's' when there is a double 's', my last name, Ross, would be perfectly clear. And I use a well machined fountain pen with a rounded nib. I have played at writing with a steel nib. The shape of that nib does not want to make rounded shapes. Have a look at the signatures in county histories under the etchings of the notables.
I am not advocating returning the double 's' to duty, but rather considering the forest. I hypothesize that using many capitals increased comprehension of handwrit; lowercase e, i, and a can be close, not so with uppercase. Ditto with 'nu' vs. 'mi.' Computer wordprocessing is a medium with electronically controlled shapes, which are not affected by the force, speed or angle of the key strike. The benefit of capitalization in handwrit is tied to the medium, rather than to the message.
This modification would not change any spelling or punctuation, which would remain identical to the handwrit, but instead of copying every capitalization, transcriptions would apply current English norms: "the barn, and two hundred cattle" rather than "the Barn and Two hundred Cattle."
Archers do not dress as 15th century English, though they do wear a leather guard on their off arm. The guard is tied to the action, the dress is just that, the dressing of that time and place.
TA
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on other shores --- due to covid I purchased a zoom basic account. Necessary for my work, it also has had a lovely unintended consequence. My two brothers live west coast and east coast; I am in Chicago. For months we have been zooming every two weeks. Short, long, with topics all over the map. We have more chatting with zoom than pre-zoom. Before covid we saw each other only at Thanksgiving.