17 February 2022

VIRTUAL MEETING

Speaker: Karen Rhodes
Topic: Interpreting Old Handwriting
Plan on staying after the meeting for the online social; it doesn’t last that long and the last few months has been quite informative!

Brief Description: This presentation covers many aspects of paleography as it applies to the early Spanish settlements of Florida as well as British and Colonial America.  First is an overview of old handwriting (letter formation, abbreviations, punctuation – or the lack thereof, etc.) followed by a discussion of specifics of early Spanish Paleography and British and American Colonial Paleography.  Karen also includes hints for reading and interpreting old documents and translating them.

Speaker Bio: Karen Packard Rhodes went back to college at 60, earning two post-baccalaureate degrees in Spanish and History at the University of North Florida.  She then earned a Master of Liberal Arts in Florida Studies at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg.  She has been the principal investigator for “St. Augustine, 1784 – 1821,” for the website La Florida: The Interactive Digital Archive of the Americas, and is the author of Non-Federal Censuses of Florida: A Guide to Sources (McFarland, 2010).  Karen is now retired but still loves family history!