The Material Culture of Wills, England 1540-1790

Numbers in the middle of lines blocking text

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4
Pauline Dolan

I
I have a will with a good number of identified lines which are simply marks between two lines of text and are not related to any of text. As requested I have left these lines blank. These lines are usually identified by the number half way through, rather than at the start of a line. As a result these numbers then block part of the word or words below in the following line of text. Most of the time it is easy to work out the letters. ( For ease I haven’t put the number in a box in the example.) E.g ‘ he owes 52nto me’ i.e. he owes unto me. The question is do I write the transcription with just the letters showing ie ‘nto me’ or do I put them in when I am confident that I know what they are i.e.unto me or put the letters in brackets ie. [u]nto me or….?