NOTES: (from Mrs. Roberts and family)

"Only those pages in the original record book on which any material was written have been included in this copy. There are many pages on which nothing was written, although all pages are numbered. Pages 15 and 16 (front and back of the same sheet) were missing from the original book and may have contained some records. The first page of this copied material was reproduced from the inside front cover of the original record, and is not legible in either copy or the original. The back of the original record book was not on it."

Mrs. Earnest Robert, retains the book both as guardian and conservator. She assures the published photocopy of the book is true to the original pages and neither adds nor detracts from viewing and interpretation

This record may have begun later than the date the church originated in August 1859: however, these pages are easily over 100 years old. During 40 years of continual service, it was used by numerous people including Pastors and church officials. Years of service coupled with years of storage have affected the original manuscript. Acid-free archival quality paper and ink might may or may not have been available. Artifact on some pages is clearly the mirror image of the facing book page.

Hand writing is in ink and pencil. Stylized cursive handwriting is sometimes difficult to interpret. Penmanship customs and rules for names, abbreviations are among the problems of how best to transcribe these records. Footnotes will offer guides to interpretation and transcription. Lower case ampersands are common; however, uppercase ampersands will be used in transcription (i.e. &).

Entry errors followed penmanship customs and rules of using backslash strikes on each word, but sometimes single or double lines were used. Correction of errors sometimes used arrow up notation and correction was very small script above entry error. Stricken entries will be noted as — ERROR in parentheses ( ).

Bible verses are sometimes seen in mathematical fraction form (ie: ½). Stylized penmanship of letters and numbers is 'best guess' in transcription. "C" - seems to indicated chapter.

Spelling is not consistent with names or words. Script used in record is usually transcribed as it appears: exceptions are words having double letters. Modern usage/spelling is used in transcription.

Example: Tennessee is written "Tefnefsfe".

synod Part of Speech: noun Definition: council Synonyms: assembly, body, committee, conclave, convocation, meeting

Synod in this book generally refers to the governing body of the ARP church senate.

synodical does not appear in modern text. In the text of this book (best interpretation), "church" is probably reasonable substitution.

Note from Billie - My own best guess for the term synodical as used in this document, "synodical year", is that it refers to the time period between the yearly meeting of the "Synod".

labour is another word lost to the modern usage of labor.