Tonight (Friday) and tomorrow (Saturday) is the second annual North Florida Genealogical Conference. Last year, the conference was held at the main library of the Jacksonville Public Library system. The conference was well-attended and quite a success. This year, it has a different venue -- the LDS church in Orange Park. One advantage to this year's venue is ease of parking!
I will be presenting one of my favorite talks, Spanish and English Paleography (old handwriting), showing attendees what to expect when looking at documents from the 16th through the 18th centuries. This has been one of my more popular talks, and has been well-received wherever I have given it, from Tampa to Atlanta.
I will also be presenting my talk on beginning genealogy, which I call "Bare Bones." I will be presenting this one in Spanish, and for that language, the title is "Primeros Pasos" (First Steps). This will be a first for me, presenting in Spanish. I hope it will go off well.
And last night, I also volunteered to give "Bare Bones" in English in another slot, as one of the scheduled speakers has had to bow out due to an acute medical situation. We all hope his health improves soon, and without complications.
The PowerPoints are all prepared, and today, after my class, I need to prepare the handout for "Primeros Pasos," and print all the handouts for the three presentations.
And Sunday, I think I'll just stay in bed!
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Showing posts with label paleography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label paleography. Show all posts
Friday, March 2, 2012
Friday, October 14, 2011
Is cursive handwriting disappearing in the U.S.?
James Tanner, of Genealogy's Star, one of my favorite blogs to read, has commented more than once on the trend in American public schools to drop the teaching of cursive handwriting. His latest posting, a humorous consideration of the subject, can be seen here . My reaction to his first posting on this subject was: "I'm a paleographer. I smell job security!"
Having been a registered nurse, I could also say that I wondered long ago if the teaching of it had already been dropped, for, judging from doctors' handwriting, it wasn't being taught well, if at all! But on a more serious note, I echo James's concern that future family historians will have a great deal of trouble reading and analyzing the documents passed down in their family from earlier times.
Other commenters mentioned the delights of cursive handwriting -- love notes, letters, little post-its. There is something so much more human about handwriting that electronic communication just cannot duplicate. Pixels are cold, handwritten letters are warm. And even though James's above-referenced current post on the subject is humorous, it points up the humanness of cursive -- the little uses to which we put it, which generate memories to be cherished -- and laughed over -- and passed along as part of an individual's and a family's history.
I suppose in the Great Cosmic Scheme of Things, the demise of cursive handwriting does not stack up as being of primary importance. But on a more individual, more intimate level, we will lose a bit of our human character if we let it go altogether, without some attempt to preserve it in some way.
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Having been a registered nurse, I could also say that I wondered long ago if the teaching of it had already been dropped, for, judging from doctors' handwriting, it wasn't being taught well, if at all! But on a more serious note, I echo James's concern that future family historians will have a great deal of trouble reading and analyzing the documents passed down in their family from earlier times.
Other commenters mentioned the delights of cursive handwriting -- love notes, letters, little post-its. There is something so much more human about handwriting that electronic communication just cannot duplicate. Pixels are cold, handwritten letters are warm. And even though James's above-referenced current post on the subject is humorous, it points up the humanness of cursive -- the little uses to which we put it, which generate memories to be cherished -- and laughed over -- and passed along as part of an individual's and a family's history.
I suppose in the Great Cosmic Scheme of Things, the demise of cursive handwriting does not stack up as being of primary importance. But on a more individual, more intimate level, we will lose a bit of our human character if we let it go altogether, without some attempt to preserve it in some way.
.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
3 July: Paleography and Praise
Blogging from the John F. Germany Public Library in Tampa, Florida:
3 July is my day for paleography, it seems. Last year on this date, 3 July 2009, I was speaking at the national convention of the Sons of the American Revolution in Atlanta, on the subject: "Paleography: Interpreting Old Handwriting, Spanish and English."
Today I gave that same presentation to the Florida Genealogical Society of Tampa. Wonder where I'll be talking about paleography next July 3?
The presentation went well and was well-received. This one of my favorite talks to give (the other one being "Our Black Sheep Ancestors: How to Approach Them"). I had some new examples, which worked very well.
That's the paleography; now the praise.
One of the members of the Florida Genealogical Society of Tampa is George G. Morgan, author of a number of books on genealogy, leader of guided tours to Britain for genealogical research, columnist on Ancstry.com, and one of the "Genealogy Guys" podcast. He introduced himself and told me, "I love your book on the Florida censuses." He told me how he has told a number of libraries they need the book.
I consider that high praise, and a good review.
.
3 July is my day for paleography, it seems. Last year on this date, 3 July 2009, I was speaking at the national convention of the Sons of the American Revolution in Atlanta, on the subject: "Paleography: Interpreting Old Handwriting, Spanish and English."
Today I gave that same presentation to the Florida Genealogical Society of Tampa. Wonder where I'll be talking about paleography next July 3?
The presentation went well and was well-received. This one of my favorite talks to give (the other one being "Our Black Sheep Ancestors: How to Approach Them"). I had some new examples, which worked very well.
That's the paleography; now the praise.
One of the members of the Florida Genealogical Society of Tampa is George G. Morgan, author of a number of books on genealogy, leader of guided tours to Britain for genealogical research, columnist on Ancstry.com, and one of the "Genealogy Guys" podcast. He introduced himself and told me, "I love your book on the Florida censuses." He told me how he has told a number of libraries they need the book.
I consider that high praise, and a good review.
.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Getting Ready for the New Year and the New Term
This week, this hiatus between Christmas and New Year's, I'm doing a little preparation for the new term at the University of North Florida, mainly for my grant project on the family structure of St. Augustine, Florida, from 1783 through 1820, the "Second Spanish Period." I have collected a bunch of journal articles and am beginning to read them (and weed them) for relevance to the project. Some involve background information on family life of the period, particularly in Spain, where many of the St. Augustine colonists originally came from, and continued to be from, throughout all the time of Spanish colonization of the town beginning with its founding in 1565. I had not suspected how many of the townspeople had migrated in from Mexico or the Spanish South American colonies as well, including Indians and African slaves.
This week, probably tomorrow, I am going to the Jacksonville Public Library main branch to look at microfilms of the East Florida Papers, my major source for information about the people of St. Augustine at the time, and to test the idea which we have been discussing on the Transitional Genealogists Forum, that of taking photographs of a frame of microfilm as displayed on the microfilm reader screen. Digitizing can sometimes enhance the readability of a document in one way: I have found that even scanning a paper copy of a document can bring out even a tiny bit more of the writing on the document which does not show up well on the copy itself. That is how I discovered the birthplace of my 4x-great-grandfather. If this method of photographing the microfilm frames on the screen works, it will make the project even easier, as I will be able to do a lot of the transcription work on these St. Augustine documents at home.
I have a dandy little piece of freeware that I found on the web, called Transcript. It presents the user with a divided screen, at the top of which is displayed the document you want to transcribe, and in the bottom half is a work area where you do your transcription. I have used it on some of the older Spanish documents I transcribed for my paleography classes, and which I have been using also to keep up my skills. It is a terrific software for the task. I love practical things, and this software is practical! Genealogists and family historians will also find it useful for transcribing wills, inventories, letters, and other original documents.
It is also time for me to plan my schedule of research trips to St. Augustine and Gainesville (day trips) to the archives there, and a three- or four-day trip to Tallahassee to research at the State Archive, probably over spring break. And, if I can swing it, perhaps a research trip to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., which houses the originals of the East Florida Papers.
It is going to be a busy year.
.
This week, probably tomorrow, I am going to the Jacksonville Public Library main branch to look at microfilms of the East Florida Papers, my major source for information about the people of St. Augustine at the time, and to test the idea which we have been discussing on the Transitional Genealogists Forum, that of taking photographs of a frame of microfilm as displayed on the microfilm reader screen. Digitizing can sometimes enhance the readability of a document in one way: I have found that even scanning a paper copy of a document can bring out even a tiny bit more of the writing on the document which does not show up well on the copy itself. That is how I discovered the birthplace of my 4x-great-grandfather. If this method of photographing the microfilm frames on the screen works, it will make the project even easier, as I will be able to do a lot of the transcription work on these St. Augustine documents at home.
I have a dandy little piece of freeware that I found on the web, called Transcript. It presents the user with a divided screen, at the top of which is displayed the document you want to transcribe, and in the bottom half is a work area where you do your transcription. I have used it on some of the older Spanish documents I transcribed for my paleography classes, and which I have been using also to keep up my skills. It is a terrific software for the task. I love practical things, and this software is practical! Genealogists and family historians will also find it useful for transcribing wills, inventories, letters, and other original documents.
It is also time for me to plan my schedule of research trips to St. Augustine and Gainesville (day trips) to the archives there, and a three- or four-day trip to Tallahassee to research at the State Archive, probably over spring break. And, if I can swing it, perhaps a research trip to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., which houses the originals of the East Florida Papers.
It is going to be a busy year.
.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Where there's a will, there's often paleography
My cousin Ginger, who has been a museum director (and therefore appreciates good research and good citations), returned not long ago from a trip to England, the lucky dog! I wanted to stow away in her luggage, but that would have far exceeded the weight limit!
She went to Suffolk, ancestral home of our 8x-great-grandfather Samuel Packard. She brought back copies for both of us of a few wills from ancestors a little further back, including one from probably our 10x-great-grandfather Moses Packard, who died in 1604. The writing is florid, though it is a hand I am familiar with from paleographical studies in connection with the course of study I took from the National Institute of Genealogical Studies, Toronto, Ontario Canada (through the University of Toronto, which records the grades and issues the transcripts and the certificates of completion). I can read a little bit of it right off, but to read it completely will take study and time I do not have right now.
Many of the letter forms used in these documents are similar to those I find in the Spanish documents I sometimes work with. The scribes who wrote these documents were not isolated and insular fellows. Many of them traveled around Europe. Many of them were taught by instructors who had traveled around Europe, and who might be from a different country. So they used many of the same letter forms and often the same or similar abbreviations.
Abbreviations were used to save penstrokes, because after all, they were doing this all day -- writing documents laboriously by hand. With quill pens. It makes my arthritis-riddled hands ache to think of it!
The other fun of paleography is the lack of orthogaphy - that is, there was no regularized spelling, no "correct" way to spell a word - in those days. Thee other funne of palaeographie is ye lacke of orthographye - thatt is, there was noe regularized speling, no "corect" way to spelle a worde - in thos daies. That's how the sentence might have looked in the 16th or 17th century. Makes for interesting reading, for sure.
I'm looking forward to continuing to be a blatant history nerd (and genealogy nerd, of course) and studying the wills over the holiday break in December. Ginger and I are hoping they will open up new leads to the study of the family, especially of those who remained behind in England while Samuel - an outcast because he had abandoned the family's affiliation to the Church of England and become a Separatist - left England for Puritan Massachusetts.
She went to Suffolk, ancestral home of our 8x-great-grandfather Samuel Packard. She brought back copies for both of us of a few wills from ancestors a little further back, including one from probably our 10x-great-grandfather Moses Packard, who died in 1604. The writing is florid, though it is a hand I am familiar with from paleographical studies in connection with the course of study I took from the National Institute of Genealogical Studies, Toronto, Ontario Canada (through the University of Toronto, which records the grades and issues the transcripts and the certificates of completion). I can read a little bit of it right off, but to read it completely will take study and time I do not have right now.
Many of the letter forms used in these documents are similar to those I find in the Spanish documents I sometimes work with. The scribes who wrote these documents were not isolated and insular fellows. Many of them traveled around Europe. Many of them were taught by instructors who had traveled around Europe, and who might be from a different country. So they used many of the same letter forms and often the same or similar abbreviations.
Abbreviations were used to save penstrokes, because after all, they were doing this all day -- writing documents laboriously by hand. With quill pens. It makes my arthritis-riddled hands ache to think of it!
The other fun of paleography is the lack of orthogaphy - that is, there was no regularized spelling, no "correct" way to spell a word - in those days. Thee other funne of palaeographie is ye lacke of orthographye - thatt is, there was noe regularized speling, no "corect" way to spelle a worde - in thos daies. That's how the sentence might have looked in the 16th or 17th century. Makes for interesting reading, for sure.
I'm looking forward to continuing to be a blatant history nerd (and genealogy nerd, of course) and studying the wills over the holiday break in December. Ginger and I are hoping they will open up new leads to the study of the family, especially of those who remained behind in England while Samuel - an outcast because he had abandoned the family's affiliation to the Church of England and become a Separatist - left England for Puritan Massachusetts.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
On the Road
I have been disconnected from the Internet since Thursday, which is why I haven't had a blog since last week. We have been on the road, having left Thursday for the business part of the trip -- a speaking engagement for me. We are now in the pleasure part, though I have to say that the business part did turn out to be an immense pleasure for me, as well.
My husband accompanied me, and we headed to Atlanta for the national convention of the Sons of the American Revolution, where I spoke on the subject of Paleography in their genealogy programming track.
The SAR had called the genealogy society we belong to, the Southern Genealogist's Exchange Society in Jacksonville, Florida, looking for two speakers for the genealogy part of their convention's program. They had one speaker from Family Tree DNA and another from Samford University in Birmingham. The two speakers SGES sent them were me and Jim Vearil. Jim is an engineer by profession, but is also , like me, a student at the University of North Florida, majoring in history.
Our presentations were on Friday morning. jim went first, gallantly, as I am not a morning person. My husband and I got up and had breakfast buffet, then we went in and heard Jim's talk on using social history to understand your Civil War ancestors. Then I was up.
I wasn't sure how interested the audience would be in paleography, that is to say, old handwriting, especially when I started out with Spanish! I had talked to the program coordinator, Joe Dooley, a month or so before. When I was asked to talk and chose the subject of paleography, I had it in mind to talk just about British and American colonial paleography, but I let it out that my specialty is Sixteenth-century Spanish paleography. Joe said I should talk about that, too, as many SAR members are tracing Spanish lineages from colonial Florida and Louisiana.
So I worked up a program to discuss general considerations in paleography, the training and tools of the scribes, a little Spanish 16-th century stuff to show some letter forms and other quirks (many of which will also be found in English paleography of the period), some late 18th and early 19th century Spanish to demonstrate the changes, and then I talked about the British and American handwriting.
Once I got going, I saw some audience members nodding at what I was saying, and they began to look interested. I was able to put a few humorous comments in, and that got things rolling. I was in the groove after that. After my talk, I did receive many compliments. That is a great feeling, I have to tell you. I also got some terrific questions from the audience, which showed that they were interested in the topic.
I didn't get to hear the rest of the speakers. We were heading to Asheville, NC, to visit my husband's sister, so we had to get on the road. We'll only have a week there. Family commitments back home limit the time we can stay away.
The hotel wanted to charge what we thought was too much for their internet connection. This is a higher-end hotel, and we've been in many midgrade ones where the internet connection is free. And this hotel was charging more than the Walt Disney World resorts charge for their connection! So we decided not to do it. And my husband's sister does not have an internet connection at her home. So here we are at Panera.
It was a successful trip, professionally speaking. I got to speak to a national audience, and was in company with some experienced professional speakers. I was running with the big dogs, and I think I showed doggone well.
My husband accompanied me, and we headed to Atlanta for the national convention of the Sons of the American Revolution, where I spoke on the subject of Paleography in their genealogy programming track.
The SAR had called the genealogy society we belong to, the Southern Genealogist's Exchange Society in Jacksonville, Florida, looking for two speakers for the genealogy part of their convention's program. They had one speaker from Family Tree DNA and another from Samford University in Birmingham. The two speakers SGES sent them were me and Jim Vearil. Jim is an engineer by profession, but is also , like me, a student at the University of North Florida, majoring in history.
Our presentations were on Friday morning. jim went first, gallantly, as I am not a morning person. My husband and I got up and had breakfast buffet, then we went in and heard Jim's talk on using social history to understand your Civil War ancestors. Then I was up.
I wasn't sure how interested the audience would be in paleography, that is to say, old handwriting, especially when I started out with Spanish! I had talked to the program coordinator, Joe Dooley, a month or so before. When I was asked to talk and chose the subject of paleography, I had it in mind to talk just about British and American colonial paleography, but I let it out that my specialty is Sixteenth-century Spanish paleography. Joe said I should talk about that, too, as many SAR members are tracing Spanish lineages from colonial Florida and Louisiana.
So I worked up a program to discuss general considerations in paleography, the training and tools of the scribes, a little Spanish 16-th century stuff to show some letter forms and other quirks (many of which will also be found in English paleography of the period), some late 18th and early 19th century Spanish to demonstrate the changes, and then I talked about the British and American handwriting.
Once I got going, I saw some audience members nodding at what I was saying, and they began to look interested. I was able to put a few humorous comments in, and that got things rolling. I was in the groove after that. After my talk, I did receive many compliments. That is a great feeling, I have to tell you. I also got some terrific questions from the audience, which showed that they were interested in the topic.
I didn't get to hear the rest of the speakers. We were heading to Asheville, NC, to visit my husband's sister, so we had to get on the road. We'll only have a week there. Family commitments back home limit the time we can stay away.
The hotel wanted to charge what we thought was too much for their internet connection. This is a higher-end hotel, and we've been in many midgrade ones where the internet connection is free. And this hotel was charging more than the Walt Disney World resorts charge for their connection! So we decided not to do it. And my husband's sister does not have an internet connection at her home. So here we are at Panera.
It was a successful trip, professionally speaking. I got to speak to a national audience, and was in company with some experienced professional speakers. I was running with the big dogs, and I think I showed doggone well.
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