A new web site offers online tutorials in paleography (the study of old handwriting) for historians, genealogists, and other researchers who have problems reading records written in Scotland in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. ScottishHandwriting.com provides online interactive tutorials and weekly posers to help you study the characteristics of Scottish handwriting. The emphasis of the web site is on practical help to improve the paleographic skills, rather than on the academic study of Scottish handwriting.
The online tutorials are well thought out. The information is presented in small lessons, followed by images of typical Scottish handwriting. Below each image there is a test in the form of a "fill in the blanks" quiz. At the end of each "quiz," you can click on a link to see the correct answers and thereby grade yourself.
The site also has numerous hints about spelling in past years and commonly-used words that may now be rare. For instance, you might find the word "cephering," which today would be spelled as "ciphering." It refers to bookkeeping and arithmetic using Arabic numerals in place of the earlier Roman numerals.
Best of all, ScottishHandwriting.com is available free of charge. You can start learning right now at http://ScottishHandwriting.com.
I could not connect to the Scottish handwriting link. Is this correctly typed?
Thanks
Posted by: Shirley J | November 28, 2007 at 08:22 AM
I could not access the Scottish Handwriting website using the http://scottishhandwriting.com url that is in the text portion of your posting. However, http://www.scottishhandwriting.com/ works just fine.
It did not work in Firefox or IE.
Bob
Posted by: Bob Winn | November 28, 2007 at 08:32 AM
I just clicked on the link in the text portion of the article and it worked perfectly. Perhaps it was cached in my browser or something. Would someone else mind helping by testing that link so that we can get a consensus?
Thank you.
- Dick Eastman
Posted by: Dick Eastman | November 28, 2007 at 09:22 AM
The link does not work as posted.
I guess it's because the DNS record for scottishhandwriting.com doesn't include whatever part of the record it is that says that
www.scottishhandwriting.com is the same as
scottishhandwriting.com
When I've set up the various domains that I'm master of I always set it so that the domain is equivalent to www.domain.
Roger
Posted by: theKiwi | November 28, 2007 at 09:31 AM
The Scottish handwriting link opened from the URL in the article, no problem. I'm using Firefox.
Posted by: Connie | November 28, 2007 at 09:38 AM
Dick,
I was able to successfully access the website using the link in the text portion of your article.
Using Windows XP, IE 6-sp2.
Nancy
Posted by: Nancy | November 28, 2007 at 09:41 AM
Mr. Eastman,
The link in the text portion works for AOL users, too. I tried the 1-hour beginner's tutorial and it is well crafted. I learned a few things I didn't know (or didn't remember). I've taken paleography classes and this is one of the better ones I've seen -- on- or offline. Thanks for sharing.
Happy Dae.
http://www.ShoeStringGenealogy.com/ssg1.htm
(There's an presentation here on Handwriting, too.)
Posted by: Happy Dae | November 28, 2007 at 10:13 AM
This is interesting:
The link in the article works for me, but Bob's retyped link does not. The only difference I can see is that Dick's link has a capital H in it.
Using Firefox.
Posted by: Dave S. | November 28, 2007 at 11:43 AM
The difference between Dick's link and Bob's link is that Dick has seemingly changed the link (hover your mouse over it to see where it is actually pointing to) after I made my post at 9:31 to point to
www.ScottishHandwriting.com
while Bob's link points to
ScottishHandwriting.com
Roger
Posted by: theKiwi | November 28, 2007 at 11:51 AM
I had no trouble opening from your link, and I too use Firefox.
Posted by: Louise | November 28, 2007 at 12:02 PM
I wouldn't quite call this site new ... I first used it 2-3 years ago to help me with documents I purchased from scottishdocuments.com before it moved over to scotlandspeople. I am glad this site is being given attention because it is a nice, useful site.
Posted by: Ryan | November 28, 2007 at 02:22 PM
I had no problem opening this link using Internet Explorer 7.
Posted by: Douglas | November 28, 2007 at 03:41 PM
Thanks, Dick, for this nice teaching/learning website. IF I ever prove my McQUAIDs (Immig. to Pennsylvania from Northern? Ireland in mid-1700s) truly were SCOTS-Irish, perhaps I'll actually need the handwriting help. In the meantime, I was fascinated to notice some distant similarities to the very early German Schrift that I joy in deciphering. Is it possible that both handwritings have a single ancestor?
Posted by: Cari Thomas | November 28, 2007 at 07:59 PM
I, too, had no trouble from your imbedded link, and I'm using Mac's Safari. Great site - Thanks!
Posted by: JINNY COLLINS | November 29, 2007 at 12:46 PM
Using Windows Vista Home Premium, had no trouble with the url in your text.
Posted by: Liz | November 29, 2007 at 03:29 PM
Hello Roger,
Your ScottishHandwriting.com worked just fine for me using Firefox on sbcglobal.net
Would you kindly email me the site to check out your Eastman genealogy. You sent this
to me once about 1993 when confirming that my great great grandmother Sarah Eastman
born Laandaff, NH May 30, 1775, who married my gt.gt. Grandfather, Mitchell Hutchins
Eaton, made us distant cousins of one degree or another. In any case, ever since I have
been following your newsletters and last year decided it was time to start paying for
them, which I intend to continue doing. You are tops in my book for being on top of
everything thing important in this field. How you find time to do all of this is a bit
of a mystery. Do you ever find time to sleep ?
Sincerely,
David Eaton
Posted by: nhexile | November 29, 2007 at 04:54 PM
I was able to connect with Scottish Handwriting with both URL links that are mentioned.
Bette
Posted by: Bette Butcher Topp | November 29, 2007 at 10:41 PM