{"id":2864,"date":"2016-06-12T00:34:24","date_gmt":"2016-06-12T00:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=2864"},"modified":"2016-06-12T00:34:24","modified_gmt":"2016-06-12T00:34:24","slug":"lining-out-the-troutfedders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=2864","title":{"rendered":"Lining out the Troutfedders"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"top-of-deed2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This image is from the top portion of an April 1876 deed between Christ[ian] Troutfetter, his wife Elizabeth, and their daughter Minnie A. Troutfetter. The “dd” in each reference to Troutfetter in this record copy of the deed is underlined.<\/p>\n

It probably was not underlined on the original deed.<\/p>\n

Probably.<\/p>\n

I have not seen the original deed, so I technically cannot say what it says. \u00a0However, having seen quite \u00a0few original deeds and vastly more record copies of deeds (which is what the\u00a0image used in this blog post was made from), I have pretty good hunch that the original deed uses the spelling “Troutfedder.”<\/p>\n

Without the underlining.<\/p>\n

The underlining of the “dd” on this record copy of the deed is to indicate that the clerk thought the spelling was incorrect, but that his job, as the clerk, was to copy the deed exactly as it was written. He was not to correct, edit, modify, summarize, extract, guess, make conjecture, etc. about what the document said.<\/p>\n

In the days before cameras, photocopiers, and digital reproductions, his job was to create a record copy of the deed–the legal equivalent of the original.<\/p>\n

So when things looked “wrong,” a notation was made. Underlining was one notation that meant<\/p>\n

this looks off to me, but my job is to copy not to correct<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s why the double “d”s were underlined.<\/p>\n

Christian Troutfetter and his family (including his descendants) used the Troutfetter spelling from beginning sometime in\u00a0the 1860s. They continue to use that spelling today. \u00a0Why has been lost to history.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But the reason the wrong spelling is because the clerk didn’t want someone to think he had copied the name incorrectly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This image is from the top portion of an April 1876 deed between Christ[ian] Troutfetter, his wife Elizabeth, and their daughter Minnie A. Troutfetter. The “dd” in each reference to Troutfetter in this record copy of the deed is underlined. It probably was not underlined on the original deed. Probably. I have not seen the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2864\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}