Person talk:Oliver Johnson (20)

"implying error in VR transcription" [22 October 2019]

Barbour's transcription is correct based on the source he used: see p. 1:8 here. However, as often is the case when you dig down to the cited record on Barbour transcriptions, he does not rely on the original record. This is clearly a town copy as the handwriting is too neat and orderly to be the original.

As near as I can tell, the original is not filmed, and I do not know if it exists even at town hall to someone who could go there. Possibly the original is buried in the land records somewhere. The town copy does not appear to give the original page number, and the land records are only viewable at a Family History Center, so it would require a lot of browsing to find a entry that may not even be there. There is another source in the FHL catalog, "Data copied from original records at Middletown, Conn." (catalog, again, only viewable at a FHC), that may or may not have an independent transcription, perhaps based on the original, perhaps on the town copy?

It is obviously quite likely that the "Miner" seen in the record is a misreading of "Oliver", the n and v being obviously of a similar shape, and the Ol being misread as an M, particularly easy if perchance some phonetic colonial spelling wrote Aliver, but curley-ques and hanging letters from the line above and similar flaws, could also explain the mis-interpretation, IF we could only see the original. --Jrich 21:19, 22 October 2019 (UTC)