Dear All, I figure there are quite a few subscribers here who have struggled with transcribing old handwritten letters. I've just emerged from doing transcriptions for more than 70 Civil War era letters. A major part of the correspondence occurred among three brothers, their families and themselves. All three followed what appears to be the unusual convention of avoiding all punctuation and all inital capitalization (they seemed to like some letters as capitals -- those would be capitalized wherever they were found). In addition to not capitalizing letters at the beginning of sentences they would render the personal pronoun "I" as a capital just once, at it's first use -- after that it was always written as "i." I'm wondering if anyone else has come across this pattern. Jack Fallin Walnut Creek, CA To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-roots.html