Handwriting Helps: The Eszett, Windows Character Map, and Legacy’s Character Ribbon

Can you interpret this name?

Neither could I. Until I remembered something that Jim Beidler taught in Wednesday's webinar, German Names and Naming Patterns. And while this was from a Swedish record, the principle of the handwriting applies.

In the Question/Answer session (timestamp 1:20:21) a viewer asked Jim to explain the "double-S". He taught that this letter, known as an eszett, is easily confused with a capital B, and is no longer used in modern German handwriting. Here's what it looks like typed: 

ß

Can you pick out the eszett in the image above? Knowing that this character represents back-to-back s's (is that even how to write the plural of s?) makes the surname easier to interpret. And with a little familial context, it is most certainly:

Andersson

Any guesses on the given name? Try real hard not to look at the answer in the next line.

Per

I never would have figured out the given name if it stood alone like this, but with the surrounding information in the record and what I had already learned about the family, it was easier to decipher that this was indeed Per Andersson, my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather, born in 1709 in Sweden.

Character Map

With my newly-found interest in researching my Swedish ancestors (thanks to another recent webinar) I've been wearing out the Windows 10 Character Map to type letters not found in my English alphabet. To find this tool, press the Windows button + Q, which brings up the Search dialog. Then type Character Map and click on its result. This is what it looks like:

Click on the letter you want to use, and look for the "Keystroke" in the lower right corner.

Zooming in a bit, we can see that to type this character, you'd need to press the ALT key, and then type the numbers 0223.

Here's the result:

ß

So, I've been memorizing the keystrokes for ä, å, and ö, the letters I use most commonly when doing data entry for my Swedish ancestors.

ALT+0228 = ä

ALT+0229 = å

ALT+0246 = ö

Legacy's Character Ribbon

Legacy has a built-in tool that makes it 100 times easier than using Windows' Character Map. Basically, any place you can type, Legacy's Character Ribbon will be available. By default, 6 common characters are shown. Just click once on the desired character, and it will be typed wherever your cursor is. 

To use or add other characters to the ribbon, click on the blue box, double-click on the desired character, and click the Return Characters button. There's room on the ribbon for your favorite 8.

If you want to see this in action, check out the after-webinar party in this webinar (timestamp 1:34:36).

Lesson learned

Never miss Webinar Wednesday. Although the topic may not appear to be relevant to your immediate research, what you learn can often be applied to what you are working on. So thanks to the viewer in Wednesday's webinar for asking the question, and thanks to Jim Beidler for a terrific explanation!