Are you able to decipher this Place of Residence from an Army Record?
Olive Tree Genealogy response: Without seeing the entire page or pages to compare letter formations and without knowing the country of origin of the original record, I can only give my best "guess". I believe the entry might be "Chelsea and Essex"
This is a good time and place to explain that when you are trying to decipher challenging handwriting there are a few simple methods you should use.
1. Compare other words and letters in the record. For example in this case, how does the scribe make an upper case "C" - is it the same as the word I believe is Chelsea? What about upper case "E"? How does he write a double "s" (ss) Does it look like the word I think is Essex? You may have to look a few pages ahead or before to get a good overall comparison of letter formations used.
2. Print the challenging bit. Put a blank paper over it and trace it (do this several times) Then look at your tracing. Often the words or letters become clear.
3. Consider the record source. What country is it for? That will help you figure out possibilities for locations. Even better if you know a more specific area. For example if I know a record is for the County of Simcoe in Ontario Canada and not for Kent County in England or New York State in USA I can narrow the possible location names in the record. Also different countries wrote their letters in different ways. German writing for example is very different from American or British.
4. It helps to know the date of the record. Handwriting changed over centuries and thus a word written a certain way in for example 1630 will not be written the same way in 1730 or 1830 and so on.
If Allison wants to send me the complete page I'd be glad to take another look but for now I have to go with "Chelsea and Essex" So my assumption is that this is a U.K. record of some sort but it would help to know the source of the record
UPDATE: I love that my readers are way better than me at reading old handwriting! Chelmsford Essex was given by many and I believe they are correct. Thanks everyone
