Your ancestor's book sounds fascinating. What region and time period did he live in?

I'm finding that the farther back you go, the harder it is to preserve spellings and word choices. My book is set in Ireland in the 13th century and even if I spent decades learning the language in order to portray it accurately, only a handful of other people in the world would be able to read it. Since I'm an American author writing for an American audience, I'll be writing in American English. While I intend to avoid word choices that would stick out to my readers as inappropriate to the time, not using words that had yet to be invented is not realistic for what I'm trying to do.

Sihaya