Marlene, however, showed us a page of the vital records of a coastal town where the town clerk made entries on the same day and wrote the same letter in two totally different ways. One of my all-time favorite pieces of advice to genealogists struggling with this issue is to read a few pages of a town clerk’s handwriting to try to find a match for the questionable letter or word. To help genealogists deal with the problem I recently arranged for Marlene Groves, who has transcribed more town vital records than anyone else, to give a talk on tips to decipher old handwriting at a meeting of the Wassebec Genealogical Society in Dover-Foxcroft. Eventually, I was able to figure out it was supposed to be “Lincoln.” For example, I recently came across a word on an old marriage record that was nothing more than a series of bumps.
I’ve done my share of puzzling over words that I’m sure were created by a malevolent clerk chuckling over the trouble he was creating for future genealogists. When it comes to interpreting old handwriting most genealogists agree it’s a difficult task.
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