OLD-WORDS-L Archives

From: "Mel Trueblood" <>
Subject: [O-W] Re: [Lon] Apostrophe on birth certificate
Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2002 13:59:54 -0400
References: <002501c21900$b282b4c0$0b6f9dd9@bx7560j>

Hello, John

At a guess, the writer was trying to express what he had been told, and
wrote the part he was sure of, followed by a mark to show that there was
something more that he was not sure of. I know of no rule of punctuation
that would account for this, but don't know the year in question, and grew
up using the 'American' forms of English.

I interpreted your message to mean that the apostrophe on your certificate
immediately follows the name Ann, and is clearly associated with it,
because a space exists between apostrophe and surname.

I have often seen the apostrophe used to indicate a missing character or
characters at the beginning of a word or word equivalent, as in a series of
years represented as: "1841, '51, '61, '71, '81", etc. I have also seen
it used to represent that a letter or letters are missing in a phonetic
representation of a name, such as 'edges (Hedges). I don't remember ever
seeing it used to indicate something missing at the end of a word. That
said, there is nothing to prove that in your case it wasn't used in that
way. The earlier the year, the more idiosyncratic written language was.
There are only a few obvious possibilities:

You might try to get your hands on a grammar book from a few years before
the time when the writing would have been done; there could have been some
rule for representing uncertain endings with apostrophes which has since
fallen into disuse. Other than this, your question seems to need someone
with extensive experience in a very narrow area; one in which very few
people are likely to be able to help.

You might try asking the office from which you got the certificate if they
have observed its use and how they would interpret it. (Working there day
in, day out, doing searches and making copies on a regular basis, they
should be able to give an opinion at least.)

The instructions for Census Enumerators may have listed some such convention
for representing names in connection with a particular Census year. It
occurs to me that special abbreviations/conventions used in the last Census
before the date of birth on your certificate might have applied; the
government conducted the Censuses, kept the records, and produced the
certificates. At least in the US, government has whole systems of
non-standard representations and conventions that are not indended to be
used outside its ranks (and which cause great confusion when they are).

You might submit queries on this point to a list
whose focus is obvious, and to the archivists at various county archives.

I hope this is of some use.

Mel Trueblood, Michigan


----- Original Message -----
From: john r. guy <>
To: <>
Sent: Friday, June 21, 2002 4:49 AM
Subject: [Lon] Apostrophe on birth certificate


> All I got on this was a lecture on the use of apostrophes.
>
> Does anyone really know or suspect why the mother's name was written as
Ann' Hedges ??
>
> Has anyone seen this before? Regards, John Guy
>
>
> ==== LONDON Mailing List ====
> Genealogy & Local History in London, England:
>
> http://www.londonancestor.com/
>
>

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• [O-W] Re: [Lon] Apostrophe on birth certificate by "Mel Trueblood" <>