I recently came across an interesting article about deciphering old handwriting (www.amberskyline.com/treasuremaps/). If you’ve looked at more than a handful of old census forms, you’ll know how important it is to determine the proper names, as well as why you can’t always do a simple online search of census records and come up with good results. Unfortunately, we may have people transcribing old records into online databases that aren’t that familiar with older handwriting.
This article was based on a genealogy course taught by Sabina J. Murray (the same person who did the Finding the Hidden Treasures in Tombstone Rubbings article).