Upper case letters

Watch out for:

• Letters I and J are the real problem. They're often identical - look at Ida and Jane, and Isabella and James. They can also look like S - look at Susan in Lovely Susan. Some letter Js go below the line - look at Jim - but many don't. In people's names, capital J is more likely than capital I.
• Letters F and T, where the F should be crossed - look at Fame and Trial.
• Letter H can look like 'St' and vice versa - look at Hope and Stella Maris.
• Letter K can look like R and vice versa - look at Kingfisher and Recruit.
• Letters L and S can look similar - look at Lovely Susan.
• 'Ex' can look like G - look at Experiment and Grace Darling.

Lower case letters

Watch out for:

• Letters n, u and m are the major problem - look at Neptune, Rising Sun, Unity, Barbara Innes, Primrose and Stromness.
• Letters r and v - look at Livonia and Stella Maris.
• Uncrossed letter t - look at Catherine and Alice Abbott.
• Use of 'fs' for 'double s' - look at Messenger, Orissa and Stromness.
• Diphthongs like oe - look at Phoenix.
• An open letter p can look like 'fr' - look at Experiment, Napoleon and Spray.
• Many different ways of writing e - look at Henry Reed, for two ways in two words.
• Flourishes, up or down at the end of a word, or coming from a line above or below, can cause confusion
• Abbreviations like L'pl and H'pl (Liverpool and Hartlepool) need care. Look out for NB (ports in New Brunswick), NS (Nova Scotia) and Nfndlnd (Newfoundland) added to the name of a port.
• In the 'previous vessel' column of a crew list, knowing the ship's port is important. The port was often written either above or below the ship's name and it's sometimes not easy to tell which ship is being referred to.

Numbers

Watch out for:

• Numbers 1 and 7. 7 often has a long descender
• 8 was often written with a hook over, which can look like 6 or 5
• 0, 6 and 9 can be hard to pick apart.
• 4 can look like 11 and vice-versa.