Hold your Pen lightly, gripe it not too hard,
And with due Care your Copy with regard.
Join every Letter to its next with Care,
And let the Stroke be admirably fair.
Keep a light Hand, and smoothly glide along;
Ascending fine, and downward Strokes are strong,
Let graceful Beauty in each Line appear,
And see the Front do not excel the Rear.

You have probably gathered some primary sources in your genealogy research. It's a great start, but many questions arise: What does this say? Why is his name spelled differently in his personal letters, deeds, and marriage certificate? Why has handwriting changed so much? This section is designed to help you answer these and other handwriting-related questions.
 

• How Can I Decipher This Handwriting?
• Why Are There So Many Spelling Errors?
• Why Have American Handwriting Styles Changed over Time?
• Related Web Sites
• Lesson Plan: "Help! I Can't Read This!"

How Can I Decipher This Handwriting?

After finding the primary documents you need, will you be able to read them? Many factors make old handwriting, be it from 1700, 1800, or 1900, difficult to read: 

• Handwriting has changed so much throughout this country's history that some letters and numbers from the past bear little or no resemblance to those today.
• Misspellings in old documents make even common words unrecognizable. Inconsistent spelling of first and last names occurs frequently.
• Old writing implements, such as quill pens, did not allow for uniform thickness of lines and often left ink blots. Ink frequently ran, further blurring letters.
• In times of paper shortages, letter and diary writers sometimes turned a finished page ninety degrees and continued writing, making a crowded, confusing document.
• Deteriorating documents may have discoloration, tears in crucial areas, and blurred words from moisture or mold damage or from fading ink.
• Photocopies of documents or documents on microfiche may compound the problems listed above.
• All handwriting is unique. It's hard enough to read people's writing today!

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Why Are There So Many Spelling Errors?

Spelling errors are common in old documents for many reasons:

• Many people had little education and few spelling skills. They often spelled phonetically, writing words as they sounded. In addition, word pronunciation has changed over the years.
• Because spellings of first and last names often were not standardized, documents contained different spellings of the same name. People even spelled their own names more than one way.
• Significant name changes frequently occurred when a family immigrated to the United States. Some families changed their names upon entering the country to sound more “American”. Other changes came about when immigration officials made mistakes in transcribing foreign names.
• In many record-keeping documents, such as church and census records, one person wrote down what another said. In these cases, letters that sounded similar, such as b and p, d and t, f and p, f and v, j and y, v and b, v and w, and w and r, were sometimes confused. Double letters may have been written as single letters in these documents, and vice versa. Single vowels and vowel combinations may have been changed as well.

There is a helpful tool in sorting out spelling errors in names. The Soundex is a coded last
name (surname) index based on the way a name sounds rather than the way it is spelled. Surnames that sound the same, but are spelled differently, like SMITH and SMYTH, have the same code and are filed together. The Soundex coding system was developed so that you can find a surname even though it may have been recorded under various spellings. Knowing a surname's Soundex code is an important first step in research using the National Archives and Records Administration census microfilm holdings from 1880 to 1920. Go to the NARA's Soundex Machine Web page at http://www.nara.gov/genealogy/soundex/soundex.html to obtain the Soundex code for a surname. 

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Why Have American Handwriting Styles Changed over Time?

Our alphabet probably originated in ancient Greece. It has formed many Western languages, changing in appearance throughout cultures and time periods. Modern English handwriting is rooted in Italian Renaissance scripts, which can be divided into the humanistic book hand, the source of modern lowercase letters, and italic, the source of cursive writing. Both evolved in early-fifteenth-century Florence among a circle of scholars. In 1522 a papal scribe in Rome published the first writing instruction manual. Other manuals followed, including one by Giovanni Francesco Cresci, who introduced a rounder script that was easier and quicker to write. This form, known as the Italian hand, spread through Europe during the commercial expansion of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The Italian hand entered England and, by the early seventeenth century, had developed in two directions: a narrow, sloped style considered appropriate for women's writing, and a simpler version for commerce (later known as the English round hand). Reading and writing were taught separately; a person who knew how to read did not always know how to write. People received reading and writing instruction based on social class, occupation, and gender.

Handwriting forms and teaching methods came with British colonists to America. Reading and writing continued to be taught on a need-to-know basis. Upper-class males entering professions received full instruction; upper-class females usually learned to read and, perhaps, to write a bit (but just for show); and those from other racial groups and from the lower classes received no instruction.

As America moved from the colonial period to the Victorian era, handwriting was taught by drilling. A teacher would call out words for students to write or set a metronome to mark time as they wrote words many times in a row. These drills were considered important character-building exercises reflecting the period's emphasis on the development of moral principles. Three technological advances changed the nature of handwriting during this period: The steel-nib pen came into wide use in the 1830s, replacing the quill pen and making writing more precise, faster, and easier; the typewriter was invented in the 1870s; and the fountain pen was introduced in 1884, making writing yet easier. It became more acceptable for women and the lower classes to read and write, although African Americans had difficulty obtaining an education, especially in the South.

With the growing popularity of typewriters in the early 1900s, handwriting went through a drastic change in the minds of Americans. Handwritten documents in business and other professions were suddenly being replaced by typed documents. Carbon paper made the tedious but skilled work of scribes and clerics no longer necessary. Handwriting then became associated with literature and the arts. This shift led to a new teaching philosophy: Instead of precision, emphasis was placed on self-expression. To facilitate expression, students learned a new handwriting form beginning in 1922: printscript, sometimes called manuscript writing. Students could learn this form faster than cursive, which they learned later in school, and thus could express themselves earlier. Later technological advances, from the ballpoint pen (1938) to computers and laser printers (the 1990s), have changed the way Americans write in the twentieth century. Today some children learn to type on a computer keyboard and write at the same time; with computers growing daily in importance and handwritten documents and letters becoming more rare, some have speculated that handwriting may eventually all but disappear.

Handwriting, and the way we perceive it, is constantly changing in this country and around the world. Technology, social and cultural changes, and novel teaching methods will continue to alter the way we write. Who knows what changes the twenty-first century will bring!

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8Related Web Sites

See the following Web sites for more information about deciphering old handwriting:
http://www.amberskyline.com/treasuremaps/oldhand.html
http://www.dohistory.org/on_your_own/toolkit/writing.html
http://www.ancestry.com/library/view/columns/tips/796.asp

These Web sites offer examples of old handwriting with translations:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~genepool/oldalpha.htm
http://www.rootsweb.com/~ote/writing.htm
http://www.dohistory.org/on_your_own/toolkit/writing.html

Click on the following links for more information on misspelling in old documents:
http://www.familytreemaker.com/00000015.html
http://www.sierra.com/sierrahome/familytree/hqarticles/handwriting/

For more on how handwriting has changed throughout American history, click on the following links: 
http://www.dohistory.org/on_your_own/toolkit/writing.html
http://www.buffalo.edu/UBT/UBT-archives/08_ubtw98/features/feature1.html
http://www.letteringtoday.co.uk/ejhandw.pdf
http://inventors.about.com/science/inventors/library/weekly/aa100197.htm

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?Lesson Plan: "Help! I Can't Read This!"
 

Overview:	Practice reading handwriting in old documents.
Purpose:	Deciphering writing in old documents can be frustrating; hard-to-read writing may hinder genealogical research.
Time:	One club meeting
Objectives:	Skills I, II, and III in the N.C. Social Studies Curriculum, all grade levels.
Materials:	Tips for Deciphering Old Handwriting handout, one copy for each club    member Help! I Can’t Read This! activity handout, one copy for each club member Copy of Julia Custis' will, one for each club member Paper and pencils

Procedure:

1. Have each club member attempt to read Julia Custis' will on their own, then rejoin the group. Discuss specific problems they encountered while trying to read it and what was most helpful in figuring out troublesome areas. Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to view and print Julia Custis' will (click here to download this free software). To print this legal size document, click once on the printer icon on the Acrobat Reader toolbar directly above the image, and then click once on the Properties button at the top right of the Print box. Choose Black Text in the Printout area; Normal or Presentation in the Print Quality area; Portrait in the Orientation area; Plain Paper in the Media Area; and Legal in the Media Size area. Choose OK to return to the main Print menu, load a sheet of legal-sized paper in your printer, then click on OK to print the document.
2. Divide the club into two groups. Have each person in each group write one line of the following passages: 

(click here for a printable version of the text below; click the Back icon on your browser to return to this page after printing the handout.)

Group 1:
Hold your Pen lightly, gripe it not too hard,
And with due Care your Copy with regard.
Join every Letter to its next with Care,
And let the Stroke be admirably fair.
Keep a light Hand, and smoothly glide along;
Ascending fine, and downward Strokes are strong,
Let graceful Beauty in each Line appear,
And see the Front do not excel the Rear.
Majestic Grace, both beautiful and strong,
Doth, or else ought to every Line belong.

Group 2:
No roughness at the edge should e’er be seen,
But all the letters should be smooth and clean.
On Care depends the Beauty of each Line,
For that alone will make your Art to shine.
Praise is deserved by the careful Hand,
But for th’ Unthinking doth Correction stand.
Quit yourself nobly with a prudent Care,
Of clumsy Writing and of Blots beware.
Remember strictly what the Art enjoins,
Equal-sized Letters, and as equal Lines.
 

3. Rejoin the groups. Discuss the activity, including why everyone’s handwriting is different. Talk about what changes may occur in American handwriting during the twenty-first century and how the increasing use of computers will affect handwriting world-wide.

Lesson 5 Handouts:

Tips for Deciphering Old Handwriting
Help! I Can’t Read This! activity
Julia Custis' will
Lesson 5 Activity Text for Groups 1 and 2

Linebar graphic by Vickimouse (http://www.vikimouse.com/)