![\"5](\"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/marriage_record2.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nImage: 1912 Catholic Church marriage record from Mexico<\/em><\/p>\n Time and patience are key\u00a0to understanding exactly what is written on the page. Check out these\u00a0five quick tips to make deciphering old handwriting a little bit easier:<\/p>\n 1.\u00a0Read through it<\/strong><\/p>\n Read the document in its entirety a few times and make note of what words look familiar. This will help\u00a0you get a feel of the person’s writing style.<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0Put it in your own handwriting<\/strong><\/p>\n Transcribe the document yourself and leave blanks for any words you can’t make out. Once you’re done, read it over a few times and see if you can figure out the missing pieces.<\/p>\n 3. Compare the text<\/strong><\/p>\n Compare hard-to-make-out words to other words on the document for reference. See if any of the letters look the same. Getting a handle on some of the\u00a0letters can help you fill in the bigger blanks.<\/p>\n 4. Keep an eye on stylistic variations<\/strong><\/p>\n Look out for stylistic variations in the lettering and grammar. In the 19th century, double s in words were often written with a long s<\/i>, which often looked like an\u00a0f\u00a0<\/em>or\u00a0p.<\/em><\/p>\n 5. Read\u00a0in context<\/strong><\/p>\n What kind of words or phrases would likely be found in that type of document? Reading the document in context can help you decipher some of the more difficult pieces.<\/p>\n Have you found some documents with hard-to-read handwriting? What tips do you have to share?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While researching your family history, you may come across many old handwritten records that are hard to read. Although genealogists would love to see\u00a0clear, easy-to-read penmanship, you’ll find that that is not always\u00a0the case.\u00a0From the census\u00a0enumerator with the sloppy\u00a0cursive\u00a0to your ancestors’\u00a0flourished writings in old journals, handwritten documents can sometimes feel impossible to decipher. Image: 1912 Catholic Church marriage record from Mexico Time and patience are key\u00a0to understanding exactly what is written on the page. Check… Read the full story<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":90510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3781],"tags":[4538,6438,631],"class_list":["post-90508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-genealogy-research","tag-genealogy","tag-handwriting","tag-tips"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90508"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/81"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90508"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95284,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90508\/revisions\/95284"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}