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Anybody want to help me decipher this 1880s hand writing?

38 replies

BlossomIsSoPretty · 07/05/2025 12:17

Taken from burial records.
The picture with the two words, is the same word in different writing. It's the location of where somebody died. Others on the burial record are workhouse, new street etc so a building or a road name.
Then we have a surname. Can't make head not tale of it
Lastly i know for a fact the name is Lempfried and is the surname of the person who signed the other two names (bottom one of the double picture, the top one doesn't have a signature with it).

Any ideas?? (Pictures will attach when approved)

Anybody want to help me decipher this 1880s hand writing?
Anybody want to help me decipher this 1880s hand writing?
Anybody want to help me decipher this 1880s hand writing?
OP posts:
Judashascomeintosomemoney · 07/05/2025 12:46

Well you seem to found it now but I was going to say is that spelling of Messenger using the German Eszett instead of double s.

BlossomIsSoPretty · 07/05/2025 12:49

Further research tells me his birth was registered as William Joseph, and his desth just William, on free bmd but he presumably went by Joseph.
Rest easy little one. Your name hasn't been forgotten.

OP posts:
mrsjoyfulprizeforraffiawork · 07/05/2025 13:06

I am not entirely convinced about that circumflex on depot. If you compare it with the non-circumflexed version, that actually reads Deport. Then look back at the circumflexed one and the 'circumflex' looks like the letter r in the second. Could it be that writer first just misspelt the first by mistake and wrote the r (not a circumflex) in above it after?

Horticula · 07/05/2025 13:09

Childhood mortality was huge at that time. I've researched my family for decades and up to well into the twentieth century there wasn't a single family out of hundreds in which at least one child died, in many families several children died.
It's not uncommon in burial records to see half the page with deaths of people under 20. I've also recently seen burial records of my 2x great grandmother's children where unnamed stillborn children were buried in graves of 50.

PrettyPuss · 07/05/2025 13:29

BlossomIsSoPretty · 07/05/2025 12:42

I've checked on free bmd. Joseph was sadly only 3 years old. (I didnt want to say that at first as very sad, although very common at that time) i put in his year of death, first name and aged 3 at death for the area and there are no hits.
For the county we have the surnames Chance, Jones, Peake and Prestidge.

Ahhh! I've just found a 3 year old in the correct location for the correct year, with surname Messenger with the first name WILLIAM! So Joseph was an error! Thank you thank you thank you. This has been driving me mad for days!

Well done, OP! It's great when you get through a wall.

BlossomIsSoPretty · 07/05/2025 15:20

Ok you smart bunch. What does this one say then? Again, it's a place somebody died so a building or steeet name. The middle word, not union work house

Anybody want to help me decipher this 1880s hand writing?
OP posts:
PersephonesPomegranate · 07/05/2025 15:25

BlossomIsSoPretty · 07/05/2025 15:20

Ok you smart bunch. What does this one say then? Again, it's a place somebody died so a building or steeet name. The middle word, not union work house

Lucy?

mrsjoyfulprizeforraffiawork · 07/05/2025 15:30

Looks like Quay. Google says there was a workhouse in Christchurch in Quay Road.
Old capital Q was often written as Q even still by some adults in my childhood.

mrsjoyfulprizeforraffiawork · 07/05/2025 15:31

Sorry old Q written as 2 I meant!

foreverbasil · 07/05/2025 16:05

BlossomIsSoPretty · 07/05/2025 15:20

Ok you smart bunch. What does this one say then? Again, it's a place somebody died so a building or steeet name. The middle word, not union work house

It’s Quay. I was taught to form a capital Q like a 2 when I first learned cursive script

OccasionalHope · 07/05/2025 17:53

Yes, it’s Quay.

Popquorn · 07/05/2025 17:55

I see Joseph Murphy

zobeit · 07/05/2025 20:17

I can see Messenger now and think the middle word is Quay.

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