Early American Handwriting
by
Lisa South, Certified Genealogist
At first reading, an early American document
can sometimes be daunting. The earlier the
records, the more difficult they are to read.
E. Kay Kirkham has written two good reference
books on the subject; 300 Years of
Manuscript and How to Read the Handwriting
of Records of Early America.
I had the opportunity of taking a course from
Mr. Kirkham many years ago and he began by saying
“beware of the terminal loops and flourishes". We
often see—particularly in the first letter of a
word—curly cues (these can be mistaken for “e” “a”
or “o”, etc.) I find it interesting that early
Americans took such effort to add flourishes
because a lot of the other problems we find are
caused by the person trying to take short cuts as
much as possible (remember the early pens were
quills and had to be repeatedly dipped into ink.)
The following are things we should be aware of as
you attempt to read early records:
1. Abbreviations—usually the words are
recognizable if you are aware abbreviations are
being used, for example “do” for ditto and “chh”
for church.
2. Termination—when a word was
terminated a period or colon was usually placed at
the end of the abbreviation. Sometimes a line was
drawn through the abbreviated word for example
“Tho” for Thomas. A line would be drawn through it
and a person might think they were crossing it out
when in reality they were indicating an
abbreviation.
3. Superior letter—you will see this
done often with the name William, “Wm” , but might
not realize it is a hold over from earlier days.
Sometimes the last two or three letters of the
word were written above the line (the way we might
write a small "c" above the line for a name like
McClure).
4. Contracting—a contracted word was
indicated by putting a curved line above the
contraction.
5. The “long S”—the long "S" is
something you will come across often. When a word
had a repeated “s” in it, the first was often a
“long s” (which looks like an F) and the second
would be a regular “s”. A “long s” was not usually
used at the beginning of a word, or when there is
only one “s” but you will find them occasionally,
particularly in the very early records.
To add to the confusion, in early American
records you will often find words capitalized in
the middle of a sentence, a lack of punctuation,
misspelled words and the use of Latin terms.
I approach a difficult record like I would a
crypto quote in a puzzle book. I pick out all the
letters and words I’m sure of and then try to fill
in the spaces. I begin to figure out a word here
or there and that helps. I might recognize that a
word has to be “the” and see that the person has
placed his “h” laying down flat – so I can fill in
all symbols like that in the document, etc.
Usually I will be able to decipher all or most of
what has been written. As with all things, the
more you read this early American handwriting, the
easier it becomes.
| 
