Reading Old Handwriting in Church Registers

By Dating Leather Bindings on Old Books
Comments 35
7 Sep 2026

Reading Old Handwriting in Church Registers

Why Church Registers Are a West Country Treasure

Parish registers are the backbone of local history. From 1538, when Thomas Cromwell ordered every parish to keep a record of baptisms, marriages and burials, the West Country’s clergy and clerks began writing in earnest. In Devon, Cornwall, Somerset and Dorset, these volumes survive in county record offices and parish chests. They are not just lists of names; they are windows into hymn heritage, community life and the rhythms of the farming year. But before you can extract a single fact, you must learn to read the handwriting. The scripts change dramatically between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. With patience and a few good habits, you can master secretary hand, court hand and italic.

Getting to Grips with Secretary Hand

Secretary hand dominated English registers from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth century. It is compact, full of loops and horizontal strokes. Letters that trip up beginners include the long ‘s’ (which looks like an ‘f’ without a crossbar), the ‘e’ that resembles a ‘c’, and the ‘h’ with a looped ascender. In a Cornish register, you might see ‘Thomasine’ written as ‘Tho:’ or ‘Xpofer’ for Christopher. The trick is to read whole words, not individual letters. Start with a known entry, such as a burial you have already traced, and copy it out. Notice how the clerk forms ‘the’, ‘and’ and ‘was’. These common words appear on nearly every page. Practise daily for ten minutes; your eye will soon adjust to the slant and spacing.

Court Hand and Its Legal Loops

Court hand is a formal script used in ecclesiastical courts, probate inventories and bishop’s transcripts. It is more angular than secretary hand, with exaggerated ascenders and abbreviations. You may encounter it in West Country registers when a clerk copied a will or a marriage allegation into the parish book. Look for Latin terms such as ‘Testamentum’ (will) or ‘Inventarium’ (inventory). The letters ‘c’ and ‘t’ often have distinctive loops. Court hand can be slower to read because words are compressed. Try transcribing a single line from a probate record before returning to the register. The discipline sharpens your accuracy. Remember that many West Country clergy were also notaries, so their court hand bleeds into parish entries.

The Elegance of Italic Script

From the late seventeenth century, italic script gradually replaced secretary hand. It is the ancestor of modern handwriting, with clear, separate letters. In eighteenth-century Dorset registers, you will find names written in a neat, flowing italic. The letters ‘r’, ‘s’ and ‘w’ are less ambiguous. However, italic has its own pitfalls: a ‘z’ can look like a ‘y’, and capital ‘I’ and ‘J’ are often identical. Practise with a page of baptisms from 1750. Read the names aloud. Compare ‘Edward’ and ‘Edmund’. Notice how the clerk uses a consistent style. This is the easiest script for beginners, so use it to build confidence before tackling earlier hands.

Cracking Abbreviations: Months, Saints’ Days and Latin

Old registers are full of shorthand. Months are often abbreviated using Latin numbers: 7ber for September (septem), 8ber for October (octo), 9ber for November (novem) and 10ber for December (decem). Saints’ days appear as ‘St. Mich.’ (Michaelmas, 29 September), ‘St. Thos.’ (Thomas Becket, 29 December) or ‘Lady Day’ (25 March). Latin terms are essential. Learn these common words:

Baptizatus – baptised (often ‘baptizata’ for a girl)
Natus – born
Nupti or Copulati – married
Sepultus – buried (or ‘sepulta’ for a woman)
Filius / Filia – son / daughter
Uxor – wife; Vidua – widow
Pater / Mater – father / mother

Also watch for strokes above letters indicating missing ‘m’ or ‘n’ – a tilde. So ‘eiusdem’ becomes ‘eiusdē’. In a Devon register, you might read ‘filius Johis’ for ‘son of John’. Write out a list of abbreviations you meet and keep it beside you.

Transcribing Line by Line for Accuracy

Accuracy matters more than speed. Work line by line, not word by word. Read the whole line aloud before writing anything. Use a pencil and a good magnifying glass, or a digital image you can zoom. If a word is unclear, leave a gap and mark it with square brackets, e.g. ‘[?]’. Cross-check with a second entry: if the same surname appears three lines later, compare the letters. Never guess a name; a wrong transcription misleads future researchers. Keep a notebook of letter forms – the many shapes of ‘e’, ‘r’ and ‘s’. For West Country registers, note local surnames like ‘Trewren’, ‘Lanyon’ or ‘Champion’. Finally, transcribe a full page from a sixteenth-century secretary hand, then the same page in italic from a later copy. The contrast will teach you more than any manual. With steady practise, you will read these old hands as naturally as your own.

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5 Comments

Robert Sonny says Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am

I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
Reply
- John Abraham says Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am
  
  I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
  Reply
  - Robert Sonnysays Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am
    
    I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
    Reply
Robert Sonny says Jul 21, 2024 at 10:00am

I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system
Reply

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