Deciphering Challenging Handwriting in Genealogy Records

This question came from Allison

Are you able to decipher this Place of Residence from an Army Record?

 Olive Tree Genealogy response: Without seeing the entire page or pages to compare letter formations and without knowing the country of origin of the original record, I can only give my best "guess". I believe the entry might be "Chelsea and Essex" 

This is a good time and place to explain that when you are trying to decipher challenging handwriting there are a few simple methods you should use.

1. Compare other words and letters in the record. For example in this case, how does the scribe make an upper case "C" - is it the same as the word I believe is Chelsea? What about upper case "E"? How does he write a double "s" (ss) Does it look like the word I think is Essex? You may have to look a few pages ahead or before to get a good overall comparison of letter formations used.

Read the rest of my tips and tricks at http://olivetreegenealogy.blogspot.ca/2014/10/tricks-to-deciphering-old-handwriting.html

Some Tricks to Deciphering Old Handwriting

Ken asked Olive Tree Genealogy a question about hard-to-decipher handwriting in an 1892 marriage record

I wonder if you could help me. I have attached a small portion of  marriage registration document that occurred in Dresden in 1892. I cannot decipher the word for the grooms residence which appears under "24years" in the image. It looks like Tp Davis or something similar. Can you relate to this location at all and tell me what and where it is?

Ken's question and his effort to read the word in this old document points out the dangers in struggling to interpret letters and character formations without having some clues to help.

My first tip is to look for other words in the document that you recognize. Carefully study the letter formations. Does this unknown word really look like "Davis"? Does the last letter truly look like an "s"?

Next, you can see that the word in question is shadowed. That makes it more difficult to read. It's also a good idea to isolate the word you're struggling to interpret so you can see it without distraction.
 
My next step was to take a look at the entire page (which I found online on Ancestry.com in Ontario Marriages). It was easy to spot another instance of the same word, but in a more legible format. I would have extended my search to pages before and after to try to find another similar or identical word.

It's starting to look pretty clear now that the word might be "Dawn".  "Tp" of course is the abbreviated word "Township". We need to find out if there was a Dawn Township in Kent County in 1892.

Next step is to check Kent County, which is where the marriage took place, to find out what the names of the townships are. Off I went to the Kent County Ontario Genweb site And yes, Dawn Township used to be part of Kent County.

So there we have it. Any time you're faced with a challenging old document that is difficult to decipher, follow these tips:

1. Isolate the word/letters you are trying to read.

2. Try to find the same word or letters on the document or on other documents written at the same time in the same hand. Compare any that you find.

3. Study the word/letters and come up with various ideas for what they might be. Write down all the possibilities.

4. Look for other clues to help narrow down the possibilities. Other clues might be the geographic location as in the case above.

5. Last resort - try tracing the word you're struggling with. Sometimes the letters will suddenly become much clearer.

Deciphering Old Handwriting

Jewish Gem wrote with several challenging questions. I'm answering one about deciphering handwriting today. There is a graphic which goes with the question

I am having difficulty reading Jennie's husband's name on Yetta Meyerson's birth certificate. Can you help me???

Dear Jewish Gem - I've taken the liberty of cropping and enlarging the name on the graphic you sent me. I have compared the letter formations of the name with other words on the same certificate.

My reading of this name is "Abraham" I am sorry I can't show you how I arrived at that, but I think you can clearly see the ending "aham" on the name.

What looks at first glance like 2 letters in front of "aham" is in reality 3 letters, rather scrunched together - those letters being "Abr"

Meaning of a term on old genealogy records

Peter's Question:

I’m hoping that you can answer my query. My Great Great Grandfather – James Baron was employed as a “blogger” in 1880. My family is from the North West of England –Lancashire. Would you know what the job was? I can’t find any references to the term except for the current Internet/web use

Olive Tree Answer: Hi Peter,

Unless one of your future descendants is a time traveller who has failed to obey the rules of The Continuum, then the Blogger term means something other than the current definition.

When was James born, to whom was he married, where in Lancashire did he live and where did you find this Blogger term?

e.g. On a census, on a marriage license. a city directory listing? Mentioned in a book? I suspect this is a case of either a transcription error or misreading old handwriting. If I could see the original document where you spotted this word, it would be helpful. You might want to take a look at the tutorials on reading old handwriting on my OliveTreeGenealogy Blog

Reading old handwriting on Ships Passenger Lists

M. R. asked

I have found Taube Regent on the "Record of Detained Aliens" (line 195) on the Kaiserin Auguste Victoria, arriving in NY on July 2, 1914. However, I am unable to locate the name on the actual passenger manifest. I found line 27 (as the manifest line listed on the "Record") but the passenger's actual name is unlisted. It looks as though she is joining her husband but the information in the "friend/relative/who/where" column appears illegible to me. HELP!

Olive Tree Answer: Hi M.R. I had no trouble finding Taube Regent's name on the passenger list on Ancestry.com, but it was not the line number you gave above. Here is a graphic of the right hand side of the entry (beside her name which I have not copied)

The 4th entry down is for Taube Regent. By looking at the other entries you can see that the first word of each is the abbreviated form of the relationship person - Bro = Brother; Husb = Husband; Sis = Sister. Taube's entry says "Fath" for Father.

Following that is his first name, which I read as "Moritz", his address is 89 Pitt St, NYC (presumably New York City)

Tips on Reading Handwriting on Old Documents

M.R. asked:

I am trying to read information about Abram Judin on the ship manifest of the "Lapland", leaving Antwerp and arriving in N.Y. on Feb. 19, 1912 (line 22), but am having some difficulty.:

1. Abram lists his father's(my gr.grandfather's)name as "________ Leib Judin". I know my gr. grandfather's name was Leib (or some version of that) but evidently there is another name or word in front of "Leib" that I can't read.

2.I also can't read the place of origin (my uncle said Abram and his brothers came from "Sharkoysin" which may be modern day Sharkovshchina, but I'm not positive).

3.Also, is Abram a "sailor" or a "tailor"???

Hello M.R. Reading these old documents can be very challenging! Looking at the 1912 Lapland manifest on Ancestry.com it is difficult to read but there are some tricks we can use to help determine words. First, look for letter formations in words you do recognize.

Let's take your question #3 Tailor versus Sailor It is difficult at first glance to tell if this is an upper case "S" or "T".

But if we look further down the manifest page we see the occupation "Seamstress" for several passengers. We can immediately see that the S in Seamstress is not the same as the first letter in your Abram's occupation. The S in Seamstress has a nice full loop. There are other examples of how this person makes his upper case "S" if you wish to have a look at the manifest. The start of Abram's occupation does not have the nice full loop and it has a "squiggle" at the base. It is a very sharp straight line - the lower case "t". You can view several other men on this manifest with the same occupation word. Thus we can say the word is most likely Tailor.



However we can seek more proof by checking his occupation in a census - have you found him in 1920 or 1930? I use
Ancestry.com but you can also order census in to a local Family History Center, or view it through some libraries. You should look for a familiar word starting with "T" on this manifest - you may have to look on other pages but with any luck you will find one. Compare the "T" to the occupation word for Abram. I suspect you will find they are identical formations

Re Question 1: The word in front of Leib's name is a relationship word. If you check other passengers you can see such words as "wife, Mother, father" in front of the name of the person who was "nearest relative or friend" from the place the passenger left. (This is what is asked for in that column) Most of the relationship words are fairly easy to read - wife, mother, father, brother.

The word father

But the word in front of the name Leib Judin is not easy. I believe it is not the word "father" Compare the two words on the page. Their letter formations are not the same. There are other instances where this word is used on this page but it is a bit of a puzzler.

The unknown word

My suggestion is that you take that one word and save it as a graphic. Trace it on paper so you can see the letter formations clearly. Now look carefully through the manifest for other words that have those letter formations. For example, is the first letter a "P"? If you start with that as a theory I would look for other familiar words that start with the same letter. Compare the letter formations and shapes of the recognizable letter and the first letter of the unknown relationship word.

Do they look the same? Different? This will take you some time but with patience you should be able to figure it out. I followed my own advice and elimated upper case P as the letter - but perhaps it is lower case p? The other relationship words on this page appear to all start with lower case letters so it is most likely that this unknown word also begins with lower case.

As for question #2 I'm not familiar with Russian place names and identifying each letter of the town or village would take some time. I would suggest doing the same comparison as with the occupation and the unknown relationship word. Copy the name as an image. Trace it carefully. Compare one letter at a time with other familiar words on the manifest. In time you will no doubt have a very good idea of what it says.

Trouble Reading Handwriting on Manifest

Clayton asked:

This is my fourth time I have requested this. No one seems to respond. My mother ,Aunt and Grandmother arrived in Halifax on Jan 1 1913 on the SS Potsdam. There lastname is Leskiw. I believe that they Americanized their first names when they arrived here. They all came from Austria. My mother we knew as Nellie Leskiw age 11 months born in 1912, my aunt we knew as Irene Born in 1911, my Grandmother we knew as Mary Leskiw born in 1882. I cannot read their first names on the ships manifest, can anyone with more experience than I ,read the hand writing on the manifest.

Hello Clayton, You may have misunderstood what AskOliveTree is all about. There's only me answering queries from other genealogists so patience from questioners is a must. I pick one question each day to answer. I don't give a personal response, my answers are posted here on the blog. Some who send a question will never get an answer as there is not enough information provided for me to respond. Others may wait up to a month or longer to see a response from me so you have to be patient and keep checking back here on the blog.

Having said that, your first message came up in the queue for an answer (sending repeated requests didn't do anything to get your question higher in the waiting list) so I had a look at the manifest for SS Potsdam on Ancestry.com Canadian Passenger Lists, 1865-1935

My reading of the first names is

* Marya, age 30 (your grandmother Mary)
* Yeryma, age 2 (easily converts to Irene)
* [S?N?]ascia, age 11/12 (11 months)

I am leaning towards Nascia as the name but it is hard to tell as the first letter is difficult to read. You should go back and compare that first letter in her name to a name or word you recognize that has the same letter formation. Look at other pages on the manifest if you have to.

Hopefully others who read this will have a go at reading the image and give their opinion as to the name of your mother.