unreadable certificates

[stephen7]

just posted a certifcate for people to look at. and it got me wondering...
if the registrars were supposed to be intelligent,  
why was their handwriting so terrible?

[kerryb]

I think it was probably well practiced by them!

Like Doctors, you would think they really need readable handwriting but have you ever met a doctor who's writing you could read!!!!!

Kerry

[stephen7]

that's true, kerry,
however, chemists are trained to read doctor's handwriting so someone must be trained to registrars. wonder who though

[kerryb]

Not genealogists that for sure, I got one this morning and it took me ages to read a word, then I realised it was Farmer!!!

Kerry

[Dougalmac2]

Hi Kerry

I'm glad someone gets an upmarket Farmer - all I get are Ag Lab

Cheers,  Mac

[stephen7]

know the feeling mac, me too, ag labs and woodcutters.

[kerryb]

That's why I fell off my chair, 90% of mine have been ag labs, I had a Chelsea Penshioner the other day, and my fiance was going to call the doctor out!!!

Kerry

[Headbanger Veron]

Just leaping to the defence of some of those early scribes..... I've been trawling through some really early BMD indexes on Ancestry (around 1839 and onwards) and the handwriting is simply beautiful.  Some of the later ones are harder to read - but as I transcribe for Free BMD, I know how they must have felt trying to work out what the original registers said! What's really remarkable is that they have survived so well, for nearly 170 years.

I also have two certificates where two children who later married, were born within a few months of each other, in the same place, and the handwriting is as easy to read as print, and much prettier! It was nice to know while waiting for the second one to arrive, that there woudn't be any difficulty deciphering it! Makes up for some of the others 

Veron

[stonechat]

If rootschat were in handwriting you lot wouldn't be able to read my scrawl!

Bob