Help with a little task

[PhilipPeake]

During some repairs to an old hall, part of the skirting board was removed and one of the workmen noticed an inscription. He took a photo with his iPhone 6 before replacing it. The photo isn't bad, but of course its not a RAW photo taken with a good camera, so extracting detail from the jpeg is non trivial.

 

I have used a few filter layers etc. to try to make the inscription more legible, but not really improved much on the original photo.

Any ideas of methods of attack here would be appreciated.

 

Attached is the original photo and my best attempt at clarifying the writing.

 

What I see looks like:

Signed on the 1st (?) of April 1887
by(?) of ???? & of ????
Alice Mainwaring ???????
& Sarah Salmon

Some means of filtering out the horizontal wood grain might help?

[Cedge]

I used a screen blend mode and the burn the burn tool, while zoomed way in.

 

[firstdefence]

Love these kind of notes, I leave such things when I do work like this. 

[firstdefence]

My take on it...

 

Signed on the __ of April 1887

By y {name} & g Lymor

Olive or Alise  H or K r amms g Housmia

& Sarah Salmon

 

lol!

[firstdefence]

[PhilipPeake]

Thanks for that. I think its about as good as we are going to get from that photo.

Never thought of the burn tool.... but did try different blend modes.

 

The third line is probably Alice Mainwaring, they were/are a fairly well known family in the area.

The last word doesn't make much sense ... unless its "Housemaid", which it could be.

 

The last name is Sarah Salmon.

 

A few people have seen the date as 1st of April -- that was what I first saw.

 

I can't make any sense at all of the second line even now that I can see it :-)

[Alfred]

30 minutes ago, PhilipPeake said:

The third line is probably Alice Mainwaring, they were/are a fairly well known family in the area.

The last word doesn't make much sense ... unless its "Housemaid", which it could be.

 

I see "Alise Kra-", as mentioned by @firstdefence. The first letter of the surname doesn't look like an 'M' to me.

 

Now that you mention it, "Housemaid" is very probably correct for the last word in that line. I wonder whether the words that follow are simply "of Sarah Salmon".

[PhilipPeake]

I initially saw "Alise" too. But that isn't a particularly English name, particularly 18th century name.

The Mainwarings are were pervasive in that part of the country that I think people see/saw that by default.

 

Capitalization of the word "Housemaid" doesn't seem right. The rest of the writing has correct capitalization.

Really, it has to be a proper noun for capitalization, and the handwriting suggests someone that knows English.

 

This is a university. I have suggested pulling the piece of skirting board off again and spending a couple of days with it in the physics dept.

[Butler To Cats]

The 2nd line I would read as "by G Horne & G Laylor" (that's Hor ne, not Home - very similar in the typed font on my screen)

[firstdefence]

7 hours ago, PhilipPeake said:

I have suggested pulling the piece of skirting board off again and spending a couple of days with it in the physics dept.

 

Do it, this is history and a fascinating topic, plus you can get a better image that can be framed and hung on the wall above the skirting. Continue the investigation Inspector Clouseau 

[catlover]

Nouns were and are capitalized in the German language, hence "Housemaid"

Alise could well be a German name, it would Elize or Elise in English.

I don't see the letter M in the name, rather a "K"amming / Kammer ?? or an "H"

So, in combination with the name Sarah Salmon, this could well have been Sarah's German housemaid.

I can just picture the two of them giggling while writing grafitty, wondering who'd find it in the future.

[IanSG]

19 hours ago, PhilipPeake said:

I initially saw "Alise" too. But that isn't a particularly English name, particularly 18th century name.

That should be 19th century, but foreign names weren't that uncommon, especialy if there was a maritime connection.

 

19 hours ago, PhilipPeake said:

Capitalization of the word "Housemaid" doesn't seem right. The rest of the writing has correct capitalization.

Really, it has to be a proper noun for capitalization, and the handwriting suggests someone that knows English.

According to my genealogist informant, that style of capitalisation was very common - it would be normal for someone to record their occupation like that.  

[Alfred]

2 minutes ago, IanSG said:

it would be normal for someone to record their occupation like that

 

I was thinking along the same lines. As a job title, it wouldn’t look right without the initial capital.