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We are transcribing Continental Army rolls & encountered this symbol numerous times. It really appears to mean "ditto" as in the "Rank" column, we'll see 'Private' with the next 4-5 entires below showing this symbol.

I've searched online but can't confirm. Can anyone help?

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    The Wikipedia page for ditto says The abbreviation do. is also used [see above], where "see above" refers to a facsimile of "an advertisement from 1833" where the abbreviation is used repeatedly. (So I'm closevoting for lack of prior research.)
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Oct 22, 2016 at 14:51
  • The abbreviation do. is rare in current English, but it remains quite common in some other languages.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Oct 22, 2016 at 15:14
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    This is related to this other EL&U question that appeared last, week, dealing with 'superscript contractions' which are now considered obsolete in English. d<sup><u>o</u></sup> eventually morphed into a symbol just like a double quote (")
    – Spencer
    Commented Oct 22, 2016 at 16:27
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    Well it looks like a 'd' and an 'o' which are the first and last letters of 'ditto'. It is similar to the numero symbol, №, which combines the first and last letters of 'numero'.
    – JDF
    Commented Oct 22, 2016 at 16:27
  • I think the evidence for the symbol meaning ditto is solid & clearly meets the context of the list in question. Thank you so much!
    – Vince Adams
    Commented Oct 23, 2016 at 22:00

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I have transcribed hundreds of letters from mostly the 19th Century and find it a common practice to include the last letter of the word, usually as a superscript and often underlined.

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