Transcriptions

This section contains a number of transcriptions of early records which I have made. There are also a few additional transcriptions (of wills) under the Images heading, and of manuscripts under the Research heading.

Documents

There are Libri Vast transcriptions for two parishes (Michael and Ballaugh). These are complete for the years given and (amongst other things) are potentially a valuable resource in tracing any family which held land in one of these parishes.

There is a complete transcription of the Knowsley Lease Book which is the major source of information about leases agreed between the Lord and his tenants before 1643. The manuscript is held in a private library and the transcription is included here by permission of the Rt Hon. The Earl of Derby 2014.

The Composition books are the primary source for leases between 1643 and 1704. Almost all tenants were compelled to take out such a lease and the corresponding records often contain genealogical records. Transcriptions are given for all of the major sections relating to Kirk Michael Parish.

Other transcriptions are illustrative examples of the Liber Assed (for Kirk Michael in 1676) and the Customs Book which recorded customary payments by the tenants (1594 for the Kirk Michael parish).

Format

The transcriptions use [] to enclose characters or comments which don't appear within the text of the document. This might be because I'm expanding an abbreviated word (for example writing w[hi]ch for wch), or because the part of the word is smudged or missing (for example writing com[] when the second half of the word composition is smudged), or to indicate a best guess at a word which is hard to read in which case a ? is included (for example the [composition?] was) or to insert a comment about the document itself (for example [The next section uses different handwriting]).

Typically these transcriptions preserve line breaks in the original document, even when these occur in the middle of a word (not uncommon). The original spelling is also retained. As a result the transcriptions are a little harder to read, but easier to compare with the originals.

In the source documents sums of money and other numbers are generally written using Roman Numerals. For simplicity in many transcriptions I have converted these to the numbers we use today.

Inevitably, given the number of entries involved, these transcriptions are likely to contain some mistakes. It is always desirable therefore to consult the orginal record wherever possible. I am happy to be notified of errors, and try to correct them promptly. Additionally it should be noted that the original writers of these documents were not infallable and certain mistakes of fact can be traced to them.