Practice makes perfect, or at least better, with 17th century paleography. It is worth the time to study the art and science of handwriting as it was taught to select forebears who were educated as merchants, ministers, printers, ship's captains, and other skilled and learned professions. You might be surprised to see that some of their letters look like different letters today (what looks like a lower case "e" is an "o," for example), there were letters that no longer exist (the double s), letters that did not yet exist (thus an "i" for a "j"), a symbol might serve for a sound ("th"), and some letters looked altogether different (s, h, and t are examples.)
National Records of Scotland, which includes the Scottish National Archives, has a whole building in Edinburgh dedicated to genealogy (the ScotlandsPeople Centre) and a site that teaches the basics of learned Scottish handwriting from the 1500s to the 1800s. It is called ScottishHandwriting.com. Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen were cities with a reputation for scholarship and commerce in the 1600s and many an early town clerk, including John Akin of Dartmouth, MA, wrote a Scottish hand.
England's National Archives in Surrey also have an online English (1500-1800) paleography tutorial. They also have a bit more information on Latin terminology and paleography for those researching the period 1086-1500. Both are in their "Reading Old Documents" section. They also give a lot of tips on figuring out the meaning of a word once you have worked out the letters.
Both sites cover common abbreviations and these are very important because 17th century court reporters, town clerks, and registers abbreviated things we do not shorten today. This is because the ballpoint pen was some 300 years in the future yet people spoke as quickly then as they do today. Turkey feathers don't handle curves as well as modern implements so letters like "m," "n," "s," "r," "i," "u" (and many others) were made with more verticality than we use today. Try making your own quill pen and your own ink from coal and water, and see how quickly your handwriting has to change shape to make your "new" tools function.
National Records of Scotland, which includes the Scottish National Archives, has a whole building in Edinburgh dedicated to genealogy (the ScotlandsPeople Centre) and a site that teaches the basics of learned Scottish handwriting from the 1500s to the 1800s. It is called ScottishHandwriting.com. Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen were cities with a reputation for scholarship and commerce in the 1600s and many an early town clerk, including John Akin of Dartmouth, MA, wrote a Scottish hand.
England's National Archives in Surrey also have an online English (1500-1800) paleography tutorial. They also have a bit more information on Latin terminology and paleography for those researching the period 1086-1500. Both are in their "Reading Old Documents" section. They also give a lot of tips on figuring out the meaning of a word once you have worked out the letters.
Both sites cover common abbreviations and these are very important because 17th century court reporters, town clerks, and registers abbreviated things we do not shorten today. This is because the ballpoint pen was some 300 years in the future yet people spoke as quickly then as they do today. Turkey feathers don't handle curves as well as modern implements so letters like "m," "n," "s," "r," "i," "u" (and many others) were made with more verticality than we use today. Try making your own quill pen and your own ink from coal and water, and see how quickly your handwriting has to change shape to make your "new" tools function.
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