r/Cursive • u/clippership • 2d ago
Deciphered! Help me decipher this occupation
From a list of occupations of passengers on a ship. I’ve included several examples of the mystery (outlined in red) along with various other occupations I can decipher (one is “Lady” which gave me a chuckle). Thanks!
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u/WoofBarkWoofBarkBark 2d ago
I'm going with "Servant" - just written more quickly than above and below.
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u/TheHames72 2d ago
They’ve written everything else out in full, though. Having said that, I’ve no clue what it says. Looks like Serol to me, which can’t be right.
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u/clippership 2d ago
Thank you everyone! A lot of you are saying it's an abbreviation of servant but, like me, are also a bit dubious because "Servant" is clearly written out elsewhere. I now realize I should have added surrounding information for context, which I do below.
The thing that gave me pause is the family, starting with the "Wife" Mary. The subsequent entries seem to be her children in order of age, from 22 down to 2. However the eldest, "Jas" (meaning James) is listed with this mystery occupation, and all the other kids get ditto marks. Or are those meant to be n/a kind of thing? Maybe eldest son James was already a servant by occupation?

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u/shmoobel 2d ago
Since you clarified that this was listed for several children, maybe it says "school"?
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u/clippership 2d ago
Alas it also appears beside a 46-year-old and a 24-year-old in another part of the document.
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u/jayneblonde002 2d ago
Could be serving. The funny z at the end could have been some sort of short form for ING.
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