Posts in July 25, 2024

The bulk of pre-20th century local land records in the United States consist of handwritten transcriptions of original deeds. These deeds occasionally contained errors that were noticed by the clerk making the record copy. The clerk’s job was to transcribe the document exactly as it was written. One way to indicate an obvious error was to underline the apparent incorrect text. In the illustration, a husband and wife are selling property and both sign the deed. But the writer of the deed has written that “he signed” instead of “they signed.” The clerk, noticing the error, still wrote the word “he” because that’s what the deed said. But the word “he” was underlined to indicate that the error was not that of the clerk, but of someone else. […]