Posts in August 19, 2024

Many of a county courthouse’s records books (especially before the late 19th century) contain handwritten transcriptions of actual records. Clerks were charged with transcribing the text of the document as faithfully as they could, but errors happen. Humans get distracted. Humans make mistakes and clerks are human. That’s likely what happened with this 1841 document where four witnesses are named. The second witness is only styled as “Wm Mc.” It’s probable that there’s more to his last name than “Mc.” The location of the document where his name appears is the section where the witnesses have signed. It seems unlikely that William (the likely full name for “Wm.”) had a last name of “Mc” or signed part of his name. My transcription of the document includes a [sic] […]