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Paleography: Interpreting Handwriting in Genealogical Research

Modern Cursive

In the late 20th century, instruction of cursive handwriting fell into disfavor in many schools. Many younger researchers cannot read the correspondence and official documents left by their ancestors in the 19th and 20th centuries. The selected guides listed below will aid researchers to interpret these writing styles.

The following titles link to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to additional online content are included when available.

These websites contain text samples and other source materials.