Palaeography: Deciphering Old Handwriting

palaeography: The study of ancient writing and inscriptions; the science or art of deciphering and determining the date of ancient writings or systems of writing.

Deciphering old handwriting can be really challenging! I'm getting better (albeit slowly), but some of the mid-18th century and earlier really stumps me at times. Practice is definitely key. I've dabbled with using ChatGPT to transcribe portions of old documents...with mixed success. Sometimes it gives me a relatively good transcription and I'm like "Oh! That's what it says". Other times, it simply informs me old handwriting can be hard to read and I might need to investigate further and use other documents to compare writing samples. 

Recently, I saw a post where someone shared a cheat sheet of sorts. I've been using it the last week or so, and it's been helpful. It's been posted on multiple sites (with no original source noted). If you haven't seen it and would like to save a copy, just click the image and save it to your computer.

I've also come across couple of free online courses/tutorials. I'm planning to work through these courses in the coming months as a part of my "continuing genealogy education". I'm starting to get back to the late 1700's and early 1800's on my paternal line, and it's becoming very apparent I need to improve my skills in this area. 

The National Archives (UK) offers Palaeography: reading old handriting 1500-1800 A practical online tutorial with 10 lessons and tips for further practice.

CERES COPIA (University of Cambridge, England) has a course comprised of 28 lessons: English Handwriting 1500-1700: An Online Course.

If you're researching other countries and languages the challenge can be even greater. Not only do you need to know styles of writing, but the language at the time. I'd encourage  you to search out some resources before you jump in. The FamilySearch Wiki currently has over 9600 entries on handwriting, covering lots of countries. It also includes word lists you may require in your endeavors. Simply use the search box to narrow the results for the country or language you need. Thus far, I've been lucky enough not to encounter other languages, but given a portion of my paternal line is German, I don't think I'm going to dodge it forever. My DNA shows some other European countries and if I'm lucky enough to find where the ancestors I carry with me came from, I definitely want to be prepared.

While brushing up on skills is important, it's unlikely to solve all the challenges of reading old handwriting. The writer may have been in a hurry, ink may be faded and let's face it...some people just have chicken scratch! Only with time and practice will deciphering old writing become easier. AI may one day be sophisticated enough to transcribe consistently, but it's still no substitute for learning how to read documents yourself. Even if you are successful with an AI transcription, you still need to compare the AI result with the original and verify it's correct. As you continue your journey back in time, take time to learn to read old script (no matter what language it may be).

 (Links to referenced resources have been added to my Genealogy Toolbox page for easy reference.) 

Image by Petra from Pixabay