The Token Books of St Saviour Southwark an interim search site William Ingram, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Alan H. Nelson, The University of California, Berkeley

I. Transcription.
II. Normalization.
  II.a. Forenames.
  II.b. Surnames.

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I.  Transcription.

The project was undertaken by Professor William Ingram (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) and Professor Alan H Nelson (University of California, Berkeley), assisted by a generous grant from the Office of the Provost at the University of Michigan.  Ingram and Nelson transcribed the tokenbooks, Ingram taking the even-numbered books, Nelson the odd-numbered books.  It follows that Ingram is responsible for errors in the transcription of even-numbered books, Nelson for errors in odd-numbered books.  We both welcome suggestions and corrections.  Though we attempted to coordinate our efforts, our practices were not quite identical: in our literatim transcription of surnames, for example, Nelson tended to normalize medial "v" to "u", whereas Ingram tended to retain "v"; also Nelson capitalized initial letters of all surnames, whereas Ingram retained uncapitalized initial letters.  As both these differences disappear in normalizations, searches will not be much affected.  We made no literatim transcription of forenames. 

Abbreviations, whether of whole names (e.g. W^m for William) or of letter-sequences (e.g. M’ for Mar in Margery), are silently expanded.  The terminal flourish which looks like a reversed-9 is transcribed as -es, -is, or -s at the discretion of the transcriber.  Raised letters are incorporated without comment.  Obscurities, blots, torn text, and doubts are noted under Comments. 

Often, a male forename is crossed out and replaced by either "widow" or a female name; we transcribed these and other changes in the order in which they appear on the page, not in the order in which the names were originally written. 

Careful scholars will consult the digital images as well as our transcriptions. 

II.  Normalization.

Forenames are normalized silently, while surnames are given in both normalized and literatim (i.e. original) spellings (the latter in parentheses, and subject to the variations noted above).  In general, forenames and surnames are normalized to familiar forms. 

General tip: Typing just the first two or three letters into the forename or surname search box will bring up the normalized spelling. 

II.a.  Forenames.

Forenames are normalized silently: thus, for example, "Wylliam" is entered as "William".  Normalization of most forenames has proven unproblematic.  Exceptions fall under various categories. 

Forenames paleographically difficult to distinguish (we have done our best, but user should be aware of a possible error):

Joan (Jone) vs. Jane

English vs. "foreign" spellings of common English forenames ("English" preferred):

Ann for Anne
Edmund for Edmond
James for Jacob (where both occur for the same Surname)
Lawrence for Laurence
Lewis for Louis
Rowland for Roland

Common Welsh forenames (normalized to one form):

Pierce (for Pers)
Rice (for Reese, Rhys)

Foreign forenames:

Creature (Dore)
Croft (Cassell)
Devereux (Cosens)
Love (Highway)

Biblical names (spelling follows the King James Bible: concordances are available in most public or academic libraries, or on the internet)

Variants in which only one form is retained:

Alan for Allan, Allen
Alexander for Saunder
Gillian for Jillian (but Jill is retained)
Katherine for Catharine, Catherine, Katharine
Magdalen for Maudlin
Ralph for Raphe
Stephen for Steven

Variants in which multiple forms are retained:

Agnes/Annis
Ann/Anna
Augustine/Austin
Barnabas/Barnaby
Clemen/Clemence/Clement
David/Davy
Dennis/Denny
Esther/Hester
Henry/Harry
Marcell/Marcello/Marcellus
Margaret/Margery
Mary/Marie/Maria
Sebastian/Bastian
Tobias/Toby
Zacheus/Zachary

Gender-neutral forenames are retained under one spelling (females can often be distinguished by prefixes or suffixes, including "Mrs" and "widow"):

Dennis for Dionis
Francis for Frances, Frauncys (later entries favor "Frances" for females, but inconsistently)
Matthew for Mathew (very occasionally feminine)

Gender-variant forenames (listed here as a precaution):

Avery (male)
Meredith (male)
Patience (male)
Christian (usually female)
Julian (usually female)

Multi-part forenames:

"David John" (unusual: most individuals of the time had only one forename)
"Owen or David" (alternative forenames given in tokenbook)

Surnames as Forenames (see Surnames below for "rules" of normalization):

ap Jenkin (in the full name ap Jenkin ap Morgan ap Fluellen)
Hassall (Taylor)
Huntington (Hind)
Overington (Blundon)
Walton (Hill)

II.b.  Surnames.

Surnames are given in two forms, literal and normalized.  Thus, for example, "Smythe" is transcribed as "Smythe", but normalized to "Smith".  A default search produces both literal and normalized spellings of surnames.  Users may, however, restrict a search by selecting the "Exact match" option. 

General tip: Typing the first two or three letters of a surname into the search box will bring up various spellings, including the normalized spelling.  In any given entry, the normalized spelling appears as the head-word, while the literatim spelling is enclosed in parentheses.  (Normalized and literatim spellings are often the same.) 

General rules for normalizing surnames:

Medial silent "e" and final "e" are often deleted. 

Initial F or Ph is normalized to one or the other:

Filcox for Philcox
Filliskirk for Phillischurche
Phelps for Felps
Phipps for Fipps

Certain terminal letters or letter-pairs are preferred:

-er for -ar
-tt for -t
-y for -ie

Certain full syllables (wherever they occur in a surname) are normalized:

brook for broke
cock for coke
field for feild or fyld
son for sone or sonne

Apparently ambiguous characters (I/J; i/j; f/s; minim-characters: n/u) are normalized to one spelling:

Auger over Anger
Hankinson over Haukinson
Loft over Lost
Tongurie over Tougurie

Initial and medial I/J; i/j; f/s; n/u; u/v are normalized to common spellings; initial ff is normalized to F:

Fillisfoot for ffillivsfootte
Johnson for Iohnson
Underhill for Vnderhill

Variant spellings are normalized to most commonly-recognized forms:

Swetnam for Swetman

Overlapping variants are individually normalized:

Surnames are occasionally of two or more forms.  For example, some individuals are surnamed Harlackenden, others Lackenden, others both.  When both forms occur for a particular individual, e.g. Joseph Lackenden/Harlackenden, normalization is to the most common variant for each particular forename. 

False-etymological surnames may be retained:

Stronginarm (possibly same as Armstrong)

Phonetic spellings are normalized to common spellings:

Moore for More
Rolfe for Roffe

Patronymics or "location" names are presented as two words:

A Wood
Ap Owen
De Barre
De Freeze
De Milder
Fitz Hugh
Van Dyke
Note that "foreign" surnames tend to become anglicized over the years: thus de Milder becomes Miller, de Vet becomes Devitt.

Foreign surnames

Some of these are listed among patronymics or "location" names.  A few foreign names give problems or are merely astonishing:
Creature Dore (Doorne, Tore, Torr, Tort)
Avery Dutchman (surname originally a descriptor?)
Love Highway

Welsh surnames:

ap for vp (example: ap Jenkins ap Morgan ap Fluellen)
Flood/Floyd/Lloyd (possibly interchangeable)
Note that Welsh surnames tend to be anglicized over the years: thus ap Owen may become Bowen.

VIP surnames

Harvard for Harverd, Harwad, Harvey (after John Harvard, founder of Harvard College)
Henslowe for Hencheley, Hynslye (after Philip Henslowe)
Lowen for Lowin (after John Lowen, actor)
Shakespeare for Shakspeare
But:
Allen for Alleyn (after Edward Alleyn, actor and entrepreneur)

"alias" surnames

Culpepper alias Smith
Hodges alias Hedges
Morton alias Morden
Note that most alias surnames are uni-directional (e.g., always Culpepper alias Smith).  A few, however, are bi-directional (Badger alias Seering; Seering alias Badger).  We record the names as they appear in the token books.  A search for either name in an alias pair will produce both names.  A search for the word "alias" in the surname field will produce all alias pairs. 

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