12 April 2010

Recognizing Handwriting

     When viewing original documents, it's often handy to be able to identify who's handwriting the document was written in.  For example, the family Bible that I mentioned receiving on easter. The Bible was handed down from mother to daughter. If I were able to identify whose handwriting was whose, I would have a better idea of the accuracy of the record.

     I've decided to create a handwritting "key." I'm going to find handwritting examples of all of the relatives that I can. I will then be able to compare these samples to different documents.  Here are some samples I've already collected:

Mom:

Dad:

Granny:

Grandaddy:

Grandmama:

     As you can see, my sources come from many different places: lists, recipes, returned checks and checkbooks, greeting cards and letters, etc.  I'm trying to obtain at least two samples from each person, understanding that many people write differently depending on the formality of the documents and for other reasons. Also, I like to try and find a sample of each person's signature.  I hope that by collecting these samples now, I'll save myself time and a guessing game in the future.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Neat idea! Looks like it can be very helpful in the future.

Heather Wilkinson Rojo said...

Very cool idea! I've started noticing that handwriting styles changed over the years, too. I've got examples from the 1700s, 1800s, 1900s and there are clear differences, also regional differences between NH, Boston, Maine, Connecticut, and US v. other countries. It's fun to find new samples and guess their origins according to what I know.

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