Paleography
The study of historical handwriting, called paleography, is one of the primary foundations for being able to search, read, transcribe, and ultimately analyze manuscript documentary sources in the past. The links on this page include a selection of various online resources for learning paleography in the three main languages most commonly used in colonial-era documentation of the southeastern United States, as well as links to online collections of digitized manuscripts that can be used for learning and practice. I have also provided a few Example Documents below to illustrate some typical 16th-century Spanish paleography.
Paleography Tools and Resources: Spanish / French / English / Miscellaneous / Example Documents
Online Documents for Paleography Practice: English Documents (on Archives page: Spanish Documents / French Documents)
Spanish Paleography
Iciar, Juan de
1548 Recopilacion subtilissima, intitulada Orthographia pratica: en la qual se enseña a escreuir perfectamente, ansi por pratica como por geometria todas las suertes de letras que mas en nuestra España y fuera della se vsan. Bartolomé de Nagera, Zaragoza.Iciar, Juan de
1555 Arte subtilissima, por la qual se enseña a escreuir perfectamente. Miguel de Kapila, Zaragoza.Lucas, Francisco
1608 Arte de Escrevir. Casa de Juan de la Cuesta, Madrid.Spanish Paleography Tool (excellent new online instructional site maintained by the Dominican Studies Institute at CUNY; examples mostly 16th to early 17th century)
Diccionario de Abreviaturas Novohispanas (excellent site with examples of Spanish colonial abbreviations, forms of address, and more; maintained by the Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México)
Merino de Jesucristo, Andrés
1780 Escuela paleographica ó de leer letras antiguas, desde la entrada de los godos a España, hasta nuestros tiempos. Juan Antonio Lozano, Madrid. (PDF version of early volume on Spanish paleography)Manual de paleografía diplomatica española de los siglos XII al XVII (online or full PDF version of 1917 published volume on Spanish paleography)
Anales de la Paleografía Española (online or full PDF version of 1857 published volume on Spanish paleography)
Compendio de Paleografía Española (online images of all pages of 1857 published volume on Spanish paleography)
Paleografía Castellana (partial preview of 2002 reprint of 1862 book on Spanish paleography)
Paleografía Popular: Arte de Leer los Documentos Antiguos Escritos en Castellano (full PDF version of an 1886 book by Jesús Muñóz y Rivero)
Techniques pour l'Historien en Ligne : Études, Manuels, Exercices (includes a Dossier with extensive imagery of late Medieval French documents)
French Renaissance Paleography (hosted by the Newberry Library)
Online Palaeography Tutorial (by the National Archives in the UK)
English Handwriting, 1500-1700: An Online Course (includes Links)
Early Modern Palaeography (online course regarding English paleography; also available for Medieval Palaeography)
Scottish Handwriting (online tutorial and resources regarding Scottish paleography)
Deciphering Old Handwriting (brief page designed for genealogy enthusiasts)
Manuscript Studies: Medieval and Early Modern (great comprehensive page with lots of good information about paleography in general)
English Paleography (the first of three successive pages with transcriptions and images of medieval English documents)
Hints and Tips: Palaeography II, Reading Secretary Hand (useful guide from the Society of Genealogists in London)
Miscellaneous Paleography Resources
World Digital Library (diverse global collection including manuscripts from a wide range of places, times, and languages)
17th and 18th Century Paleographic (and other) Resources Online (links to a variety of sites in several languages)
Script Tutorial: Making Sense of Old Handwriting (genealogy-focused site covering paleography in multiple languages)
Repositories of Primary Sources (very comprehensive listing of archives including online archival imagery, organized by geographic region/country; even when links are old or broken, the listing should be helpful in finding sources; hosted by University of Idaho Special Collections)
EuroDocs: Online Sources for European History (extensive set of links including document images, facsimiles, transcriptions, and translations)
Digital Librarian: Archives & Manuscripts (extensive set of links with online manuscript imagery)
American Memory (the searchable Library of Congress website with a range of historical resources)
Medieval Manuscripts (extensive links from the Medieval Studies program at Georgetown University)
Medieval Source Material on the Internet (great starting point to find digital imagery online)
Digital Medieval Manuscripts at Houghton Library (extensive collection of digitized manuscripts in many languages, housed at Harvard University; see also the Book of Hours collection)
Digital Scriptorum (searchable centralized database of online digital imagery of medieval and renaissance manuscripts, housed at the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley)
Anglo-American Legal Tradition: Documents from Medieval and Early Modern England from the National Archives in London (extensive and chronologically and geographically organized if unindexed set of imagery of medieval English legal documents)
Archivos Digitales (a great listing of online digital archival collections in many languages; hosted by the Spanish-language site Archivistica.net)
17th and 18th Century Paleographic (and other) Resources Online (great collection of useful links; hosted by Yale University)
English Language Manuscript Documents (includes sites unrelated to colonial-era studies for purposes of practice)
Florida Memory Project (many digitized manuscript image collections, including Spanish Land Grants in Florida,Confederate Pension Files, the Zephaniah Kingsley Papers, selected Supreme Court Records, and several diaries and other records; maintained by the State Archives of Florida)
National Archives Archival Research Catalog (searchable index of archival resources, some of which are digitally reproduced; see als0 Archival Descriptions Advanced Search)
Library of Congress collections (extensive digitized collections with manuscript documents, including the following examples)
Colonial America (subscription-only access to digitized imagery of the entire CO-5 series from the UK National Archives)
Thomas Jefferson Papers (many contemporary handwritten documents from Jefferson's time, but also including original 17th- and early 18th-century records from early Virginia history, such as Virginia Records, 1606-1727, as well as a brief but useful section About Early Modern English)
James Madison Papers (mostly 18th and early 19th century manuscripts)
George Washington Papers (an assortment of 18th century manuscripts)
Papers of the War Department, 1784-1800 (project to accumulate manuscript records to replace official records lost to fire; includes images of documents that can be transcribed and submitted to the site; hosted by George Mason University)
West Florida Public Libraries (database listing includes home portal to HeritageQuest Online, a geneaologically-oriented search site including free access to digitized U.S. federal census images also available on the pay site Ancestry.com)
US GenWeb Archives - Census Images (links to a selection of online census images that are available free of charge; organized by state, county, and census year)
New York Public Library Digital Collections (includes a range of digital sample imagery from many periods)
Cornell University Rare and Manuscript Collections Images (an assortment including manuscript images)
Yale University Manuscripts and Archives Digital Images Database (selection of images)
Cooperative Digital Resources Initiative (a range of imagery hosted by the American Theological Library Association, such as 18th-century manuscripts by John Wesley)
Salem Witch Trials: 17th Century Documents (a remarkably extensive collection of late 17th-century documents associated with this period)
Digital Donne (manuscript copies of many of John Donne's 17th-century poems; hosted by Texas A&M Universitiy)
Westchester County (New York) Historical Society (small but excellent collection of digitized manuscript documents)
History of the United Kingdom: Primary Documents (chronologically-ordered series of primary sources, including some digital imagery)
Early Modern Resources: Primary Sources (extensive set of useful links to online primary sources, including some digital imagery)
Georgia's Virtual Vault (several searchable collections of digital document imagery, hosted by the Georgia Archives of the University System of Georgia; examples of 18th-century manuscripts include Colonial Wills and Colonial Will Books and Colonial Estate Records)
Digital Library of Georgia (search page including many digitized manuscripts, such as the manuscript collection of the Hargrett Rare Book & Manuscript Library, which includes the Telamon Cuyler Historical Manuscript Collection).
Alabama Textual Materials Collection (digitized manuscripts including both colonial-era and American-era documents; maintained by the Digital Collections of the Alabama Department of Archives and History)
University of Mississippi Archives and Special Collections, Digital Collections (excellent collection of a range of primary sources from many periods, including a good set of Civil War correspondence searchable by location)
Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Digital Archives (another searchable collection of digital images of colonial- and early American-era manuscripts).
The Plymouth Colony Archive Project (a great assortment of transcripts of a range of 17th-century documents from the Plymouth colony; no digital document images so far)
American Journeys: Find a Document (mostly images of published transcripts and translations of original documents, but some handwritten manuscripts also available)
As examples of 16th-century Spanish colonial paleography related to Spanish Florida, a few selected digitized documentary sources relating to the Tristán de Luna expedition can be seen below:
Luna y Arellano, Tristán de
1559 Letter to the Spanish Crown, September 24, 1559. Legajo 179, Ramo 1, No. 5, Patronato, Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Spain. In Priestley (2010, v.2:242-247).Velasco, Luís de
1559 Letter to the Spanish Crown, September 24, 1559. Legajo 19, Ramo 9, Patronato, Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Spain. Faulty transcription in AGI Mexico 280, in Priestley (2010, v.2:268-277), based on Juan Bautista Muñoz transcription in Buckingham Smith published collection here.Ybarra, Hortuño de
1561 Interrogation of soldiers from the Luna expedition, August 11-12, 1561. Legajo 19, Ramo 10, Patronato, Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Spain. In Priestley (2010, v.2:278-321).Villanueva, Luis de
1562a Review of 1559 estate records of Antón Guillén, January 19, 1562. Legajo 200, No. 2, Ramo 1, Contratación, Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Spain.