Editorial Criteria for the Westborough Church Records

In this expanded transcription, abbreviations have been expanded unless commonly used today (e.g., Chh becomes Church); superscript letters have been brought down to the line and the words expanded (e.g., w^th becomes with, Sacram^t becomes Sacrament); additions that appear in the margins or at the bottom of a page have been silently inserted where Parkman placed a caret (^); crossed-out words are omitted unless the words suggest something of the writers’ intentions (surely a subjective judgment); punctuation, particularly commas and semicolons, has been added—or omitted—to make reading the document easier; and paragraphing has been changed for the same reason. Spelling is unchanged, and, in a few instances, [sic] is inserted to reassure the reader that what appears in the transcription is what was written in the original document. Parkman liberally used dashes (—); for the most part, this transcription changes the dashes to periods or other punctuation, leaving some dashes where the context seems to warrant their use (again, a subjective judgment). Ampersands are changed to “and” (with &c. changed to etc.). The thorn y has been rendered as “th” (e.g., y^e, y^t, y^s become the, that, and this). In many expanded transcriptions, underscored words are placed in italics; in this transcription, such words remain underscored.

A few editorial decisions may seem arbitrary, but one hopes that such decisions are consistently used. Dates are uniform, with the months spelled out: for example, September 3, 1762 rather than Sep^t 3. 1762. Parkman used several versions of “baptized”: baptized, baptiz’d, baptizd, bapt., and bap^d; in this transcription, bapt. and bap^d become baptized. Parkman also used various spellings for Westborough and other “borough” towns; the names are fully spelled out.

One exception to the expansion of abbreviations occurs when Parkman spelled the past tense of verbs with the omission of the “e” in “ed”—for example baptizd, detaind, excusd, restord, desird, etc. In this transcription, such words remain as he wrote them (except, of course, when he wrote detained, excused, etc.).