OK. The first try at distinguishing between what was printed and what
was hand written didn't work. In the copy that RootsWeb sent back to
me, I mostly received a lot of extra slashes - '/'. And a few extra
'O's. But some *BOLDING* did come thru.
As the Pennsylvania Dutch in my area are alledged to say: "We grow too
soon old; and too late smart." So this time I'll try to be smarter and
send a small test, rather than an entire, lengthy document.
I still think it's useful, when reading a transcription of an old
document, such as a deed, to convey which parts were preprinted, and
which parts were handwriiten in the spaces provided on the form.
Sometimes the spaces were large enough for several paragraphs or even
most of the page.
Some of you may find plowing thru the endless strings of synonyms in old
legal documents tedious, and not worth the bother. But they can provide
important clues about who was alive or not as of a specific date, where
they lived then, society's attitudes on such things as women's rights
(or lack thereof), and teasers about the state of relelationships in a
family. For example, why was Enoch Blackwell Campbell selected as the
administrator of James' estate, rather than the eldest son, Robert, or
another of Enoch's older brothers? I know there were some stresses and
strains between my father and my eldest brother that didn't exist for
the rest of us. Did James pick Enoch or did a court appoint him? As of
the 1860 census, Enoch was the oldest son still living "at home", so he
may have been picked as the handiest to communicate with. Robert was
just 3 farms away, but that could have been too long a walk for James by
that time and farther that he liked to bounce around in a buggy -- and
we forget that in the spring there were many weeks when the roads were
too muddy for wagons and buggies -- it was walk, ride a horse, or stay
home. Robert was too far away to communicate via tin cans and string --
and tin cans were not very common yet.
Back to the test. I'll try two methods.
First, curly brackets for the handwritten portions:
Received from {John Jones} the sum of {One dollar} lawful money.
Second, slash and backslash:
Received from \John Jones/ the sum of \One dollar/ lawful money.
Also, here's a test of *bold* and _underlined_.
In the first attempt to send the deed, I also tried showing what parts
were in larger and smaller print, but that didn't work -- as I feared.
But the good news is that RootsWeb does that to protect you from harmful
code embedded inside a message.
After I receive my copy of this test, I'll rescend Anthony Lugg's deed.
He was a cousin of those of us who are descendants of Joseph and Ann
Clinch Campbell or of James and Mary Blackwell Campbell.
This must be one of the longest winded test transmissions in history.
--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.338 / Virus Database: 267.10.5/67 - Release Date: 8/9/2005