My Trails into the Past

Do you collect the signatures of your ancestors? It sounds like a trivial pursuit like collecting baseball cards or postage stamps, but collecting signatures of your ancestors can be useful in your genealogy research. Let’s talk about signatures we find in records. Clerk-recorded Records Records that we find online at Ancestry and FamilySearch that are in registers and other record books likely have only facsimile signatures. Those were written by the clerk responsible for recording the transaction. So be careful. If the ancestor’s signature handwriting looks just like the handwriting of the rest of the document, then you have only a clerk’s copy of the signature. The actual signature was on the document that was either put in a court packet (loose papers) or on the deed that the buyer took with them. Yes, occasionally I find original signatures in record books, especially those of marriage records. Home Records A great place to find original signatures is in records found in ou...

Last week when working on a presentation about resources for school-attending ancestors, I discovered I had the signatures of a set of my maternal great-grandparents. These were from the report card of my grandfather’s sister, Beryl Johnston.  Home sources are likely to be the best place to locate signatures of our ancestors. Many of the signatures we see in governmental records are clerk-recorded signatures. To be sure, check the handwriting of the signature against the other writing from the clerk. If it looks similar, likely the clerk wrote it. Chances for real signatures might be in probate case files of loose papers, actual deeds (not those recorded in deed ledgers), passport applications, and naturalization certificates. My marriage certificate has the signatures of my husband and me, as well as his brother and my sister, who were our witnesses. It is wonderful to have the handwriting of my ancestors. It makes me feel connected to them. My parents: William J. Hork L...