In French typography, we also find the special ligatures for the French
(and Roman Latin) word "et" (means "and"), using old alternate forms for
the lowercase letter "e", looking mostly like a Greek epsilon (or the Latin
Small Open E, still used in Tamazigh as a letter distinct from the
standard Latin Small E).
See http://www.adobe.com/type/topics/theampersand.html for a short history of the ampersand and some of its variations in modern computer fonts.
What this doesn't indicate is that sometimes in medieval text the ampersand ligature is used to spell _et_ as part of a longer word. So perhaps it should be considered a letter with alphabetic properties?
The forms you describe seems like some of those shown in my link and all but the two earliest would be recognized by English readers as acceptable modern ampersand forms.
Check common fonts like Trebuchet MS, Berkeley Book, Goudy Sans, Korinna and Univers for recognizable _Et_ ampersands.
In common proofreading practice in English, at least in my experience, the ampersand is often pronounced as "et".
On the opposite, the use of the "et" ligature (which is really
representing the French word "et" with its two letters) is quite
common even in recent books and publications, and it looks
pretty good typographically, notably for its titlecase version at
at the beginning of sentences.
Possibly a capital ampersand is needed?
Jim Allan
