Jane Bigelow's Handwriting Convention Guide

Transcribing historical documents can be difficult at first, but gaining familiarity with the handwriting style of the author will enable you to transcribe more quickly and accurately. Jane Bigelow’s handwriting style has many unique features, and this guide will introduce some of those characteristics.

Unique style characteristics frequently seen in Jane’s handwriting:

  1. Ampersands
    • Symbols noting a “plus” or “and” are not a traditional ampersand. Rather, it is a quick flourish of a plus sign, and it can be mistaken for a lone, but short, uppercase “L” or a “2.”
      ampersand ampersand ampersand  
  2. Hyphens
    • Hyphens look like underscores.
      text containing a hyphen  
  3. Mr. and Mrs.
    • Jane does not use punctuation marks when writing titles for married people, such as a period after the title or an apostrophe when using it as a possessive. Sometimes she will write an underscore under the “r” and “rs” letters in the word.
      Mr. ampersand Mrs. Mr. Mrs. Mrs.  
  4. "Today"
    • “Today” is often written in two separate words as “to day.”
      Today  
  5. "D"
    • Her lowercase “d” is curved up and to the left.
      curved d curved d curved d
  6. "I"
    • Uppercase “I” can often look like a variant of “g.”
      uppercase i uppercase i  
  7. "R"
    • Jane’s uppercase “R” can be mistaken for an uppercase “B.”
      uppercase r uppercase r  
  8. "T"
    • Jane elongates the cross stroke in a lowercase “t” where it will sometimes run through other letters, like “k,” “”h,” or ”l.”
      lowercase t lowercase t lowercase t lowercase t lowercase t lowercase t  
  9. "V"
    • Jane’s lowercase “v” often looks like a lowercase “r” in the middle of a word and a “c” at the beginning of a word.
      lowercase v lowercase v lowercase v  
  10. "W"
    • Jane’s lowercase “w” can often look like a lowercase “u,” “c,” or “n.”
      lowercase w lowercase w  
  11. Long "s"
    • Look out for the long “s” in a word; sometimes the first “s” is a long one that looks slightly like an elongated “f,” as found in “professional” below.
      long s  

Letter

Uppercase

Lowercase

A

 uppercase a lowercase a

B

 uppercase b lowercase b

C

 uppercase c lowercase c

D

 uppercase d lowercase d

E

 uppercase e lowercase e

F

 uppercase f lowercase f

G

 uppercase g lowercase g

H

 uppercase h lowercase h

I

 uppercase i lowercase i
J uppercase j lowercase j
K uppercase k lowercase k
L uppercase l lowercase l
M uppercase m lowercase m
N uppercase n lowercase n
O uppercase o lowercase o
P uppercase p lowercase p
Q uppercase q lowercase q
R uppercase r lowercase r
S uppercase s lowercase s
T uppercase t lowercase t
U uppercase u lowercase u
V uppercase v lowercase v
W uppercase w lowercase w
X N/A lowercase x
Y uppercase y lowercase y
Z N/A lowercase z
Prev Next