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Friday, May 27, 2016

52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2016 WEEK 16:RICHARD DANA OF CAMBRIDGE, MA. PT2

My 9x great grandfather Richard Dana died intestate but his surviving children reached an amiable agreement among themselves as to how the estate should be divided. While it's quite legible the document presents me with a challenge of a different sort.
Here's the backside of the agreement:

Middlesex County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1648-1871.Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014. (From records supplied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives.)Case 5859-3


 As you can see, it appears that someone taped two pages into one long piece. But since tape of this sort didn't exist in the 17th century, it's more likely it was one long piece to begin with and at some point had to be repaired with tape to hold it together. There's also some water damage.

Middlesex County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1648-1871.Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014. (From records supplied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives.)Case 5859-4

This is a problem (albeit a minor one) for three reasons. The first is in the middle where the two pages aren't quite lined up properly so some letters in words along that vertical crease are harder to make out.

Secondly, most of the words in the horizontal crease are obscured by the tape and a few have been damaged by the water.

Thirdly, the document is so large whoever scanned it couldn't get it all in one image so the top part of the second image is the bottom part of the first. It took me a few minutes to realize that when I first read the agreement.
Middlesex County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1648-1871.Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014. (From records supplied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives.)Case 5859-5


So I haven't finished transcribing this yet.

But at least there isn't any superscript!

1 comment:

Celia Lewis said...

Good heavens! There loooks to be so much in these pages!
Treasure here, Bill. Have fun doing the transcribing. :)