Old Handwriting Cheat Sheet

Old-fashioned handwriting, inconsistent spelling, fading ink and unfamiliar words can conspire to make genealogy records frustratingly difficult to decipher.Use the at-a-glance strategies, tips and resources in Family Tree Magazine’s reading Old Handwriting Cheat Sheet to read your ancestors’ old documents and get the names, dates and other details you need.In the five-page, user-friendly Reading Old Handwriting Cheat Sheet download, you’ll find:

• An overview of English handwriting styles found in old records
• Handwriting samples from the 1600s through 1800
• Nine steps to deciphering hard-to-read documents
• Characters to watch out for, including obsolete characters (such as the thorn and the long S) and letters that tend to resemble each other in old writing
• How to use an alphabet key and a word matrix to decipher written words
• Tips for understanding old words
• Glossary of Latin terms often found in old documents
• Resources including how-to books, online tutorials and glossaries