People who take up the hobby of genealogy run the risk of losing themselves for days in the misty pages of history. Events that at first seem merely a collection of names and dates unexpectedly unroll themselves into a moving picture of the times. A connection is made, and one feels oneself among those long-vanished individuals, taking part in their experiences through their words and actions.

A case in point is recounted in the county court records of Accomack County, Va., in September 1644. Mrs. Wilkins and Mary Spillman have had a dispute that has required legal attention. One suspects that it has its roots in a relationship between Mr. Wilkins and Mary, culminating in the said Mrs. Wilkins giving "the sayde Mary a slap in the Chopps" and exchanging "some words of distace (distaste)" with her. Witnesses John Broome and Katherine Dewin are testifying.

John is telling what happened as Mary, Katherine and he were "comeing back in Mr. Wilkins his Field." "Wilkins his Field" seems a rather odd construction. It is not odd to them, however, because Katherine uses the same construction, namely, "Comeing homeward through Mr. Wilkins his Fence..."

A similar construction was used in 1666 by one John Clawson of Rhode Island, who had been cleaved in the chest by an ax wielded by a hostile native. He was attempting to use his dying words to indicate who was to receive his modest estate, and he managed the words, "Maister his goods," Maister being Master Roger Williams, who was trying to get the court to make a favorable determination on his behalf.

A closer look at the Accomack text reveals a number of oddities, one being the complete lack of punctuation -- no periods, no commas, no apostrophes --none. Before 1600 there was little or no punctuation. Instead of their using the apostrophe to indicate possession, they used the method indicated. "Mr. Wilkins his fence" meant Mr. Wilkins's fence. Clawson was saying, "Maister's goods."

A plausible explanation offers itself. If one says "Mr. Wilkins his fence" quickly, it sounds exactly like "Mr. Wilkins's fence." The apostrophe indicates an elision of the "h" and "i" in "his."

Many Englishmen did not pronounce a leading "h" anyway, so it may have been pronounced "Mr. Wilkins 'is fence." There is no equivalent female form for the (apostrophe s); when English must make a choice, it chooses the masculine form.

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There were several instances of the construction, "She asked the said Mary saying...." That was their method of indicating without the use of quotation marks where quoted speech began. This was not long after the completion in 1611 of the King James version of the Bible, in which "saying" is used extensively in place of quotation marks, such as "...they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee..." We would write "...they cried out, 'What have we to do with thee'..."

When one reads documents dated as late as the 19th century, one is inclined to wonder why there are sometimes no periods where a quill pen would likely deposit a substantial amount of ink. The answer is that some clerks still thought that periods were an unnecessary adornment of their script.

Punctuation is still changing. Agreement is never universal. But like a piece of any culture, its roots go back thousands of years, and it never forgets its origins. Regarding Mrs. Wilkins and Mary, we do not have the outcome of the judge his case.

(William C. Inman is the author of the family history "The Birth, Life, and Death of Pioneer America.")

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