One of the general lessons for today is to be aware of lazy letters. I spent several hours, on and off, trying to decipher a letter which seemed to read as " Cu " or " Co ". Finally, it dawned on me that it was a lazy " W ". Imagine the model is our printed " W ". In German script, the handwritten " W " should look something like that but if the second " V " in the " W " is 'lazy', it does not rise up very high. And the middle leg does not come up very high. These parts are weak and do not do their job properly. This occurs several times in a phrase which reads " Reichs frei Wohl---- ." (The word "frei" was actually spelled " frey " with an umlaut over the " y " and someday I will find out what the phrase means. Remember, it takes patience in this game.)
Often the German script will end a word with a flourish that demands attention, but it may be just a routine letter like " e ". Many times these flourishes descend down to the next line and get mixed up with it. Thus, one of the problems is deciding which marks to throw away as they have nothing to do with the problem.
I am not very expert on the capital " I " but it looks a little something like our " I ", and does not drop below the line. The " J " looks a little like the " I ", but it drops below the line. Thus, our English model of these letters is approximately correct.
There are two letters that are easy to mix up, and they are the " K " and the " R ". Basically, though, one looks for a trailing mark to the right at the upper end of the " K " while the " R " has something added to the left at the upper end. The " R " itself looks a bit like our " R ", so it suggests itself readily, except when they write the " R " as an overgrown lowercase " r " as we know it. This mostly seems to occur in names where they may be attempting to use Latin letters.
You should have no problem recognizing the name Maria, which starts with a capital " M " except it is no larger than our lower case " m ". It looks almost like our " M ". You get lots of chances to practice on the " M " because the name Maria is common (but not as common as Hans). Incidentally, the same man may be called Hans in one record and Johann in another record.
The letter " O " looks like we would hope it does. Unfortunately, they do not use it that often.
The prize letter of all is the capital " P " which looks like a bouquet of flowers in a vase, and I think some writers take time to draw this picture. You have to see it to believe it, but, if it is done consistently (note the disclaimer), there is no confusion with any other letter. When you have a Petter you better believe it.
So far I have found a Martha, an Esther, a Barthoe(?), and Melchoir plus all of the names we know in Virginia.
(10 Sep 03)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.