English round hand
17th – 19th century · English-language parish registers and civil records
Alphabet
The letters as they are drawn. Compare them with the record: it is the shape that counts, not the size.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
ſ
&
Reading traps
| What you think you see | What it may be | How to tell them apart |
|---|---|---|
| f | s | The long s looks like an f without its bar, or with a bar stopping on the left. “Miſs” reads Miss. |
| u | n · v | u and n are the same shape turned over; in round hand the v closes to a point and has no straight stroke. |
| e | i · o | The eye of the e is often filled with ink and then reads as an o. Compare with a certain e from the same record. |
| i | j | The j does not always have a descender before 1750: Iohn is John, Iames is James. |
| t | c | The t carries its bar at the top, often detached and thrown onto the next letter. |
| p | y | Both drop below the line; the p closes a bowl to the right of its stem, the y does not. |
Ligatures and vanished letters
| ſ | reads s | long s; “Miſs” reads Miss |
| ſſ | reads ss | |
| yᵉ | reads the | here the y stands for the Icelandic thorn (þ), not a y |
| yᵗ | reads that | here the y stands for the Icelandic thorn (þ), not a y |
| &c | reads etc. |
Write it to compare
Type a name you think you recognize: it appears in this script, to be set against the strokes in front of you.
Decoder
Type what you think you read, in today's letters. The decoder offers the neighbouring readings — one substitution at a time, because two stacked guesses can no longer be checked.
Everything is computed in your browser: no name you look up in a record leaves your device. The fonts are free (SIL Open Font License, or GPL with font exception) and served by Geneacta, never by a third party.