As I mentioned last month, I sent a handwriting sample (a 30+ page letter) to certified handwriting analyst Nancy Douglas of Write Meaning. I’d seen her booth at RootsTech and was fascinated by the service she offered.
The letter was from my paternal grandfather, Dave Adams, to his fiancee (my grandmother), Beatrix Rasco. It was a sort of confessional: Dave wanted to give Bea full disclosure about his personal family history prior to their marrying. It was sent just a month before their wedding date.
Well, Nancy didn’t disappointed. She provided me with a six-page (singled-spaced) report detailing the personality traits revealed by my grandfather’s handwriting. She took into account the content of the letter and applied it to what she saw in the handwriting.
I read information like, “Dave’s capital letters are often embellished with large loops. Your grandfather was a showman who liked to attract attention and recognition.” And “His personal pronoun ‘I’ shows his mother and father were both very influential in his upbringing.”
She included photos of individual letters and words to illustrate what she meant. It was such a fun report to read!
I was in my twenties when my grandfather passed away. We lived in different towns and while I spent time with him, I don’t feel I knew his personality well. And growing up I certainly never thought about what he was like as a young man.
I think this handwriting analysis is going to be a wonderful springboard for conversation with my 84-year-old father. I have a hard time pulling stories out of him about his family and childhood. I think by bringing up what Nancy gleaned from my grandfather’s handwriting and asking him about it, I’ll hear some great stories about my grandfather. I’ll also discuss the analysis with my mother and get her perspective on my grandfather’s personality.
Reading Nancy’s report made me want to have my own handwriting analyzed. I think I’ll treat myself to that this summer!
I paid $100 for my grandfather’s handwriting analysis, which feels like a huge bargain for what I received. If you some letters hanging around and curiosity about their writer, I encourage you to give it a try!
Edited to add: I did have Nancy analyze my own handwriting. Unfortunately, she’s no longer in the handwriting analysis business, though.
I just found your website and of course the first article is about handwriting analysis. I have been doing genealogy research since the early 80″s and have a collection of old letters etc. from many ancestors. Back in the late 60’s and early 70’s, I had a “hobby” of doing handwriting analysis, mostly for fun with friends (not the “carnival” type of analysis, but true handwriting analysis). During that time frame, I was teaching emotionally disturbed teenagers at a state mental hospital, when there still were those kind of hospitals, and for a joke at a staff party, I did a quick analysis of one of the staff members. Afterwards, my best friend, who was a counselor on staff with me, approached me and asked how I was able to make the statements I had made. He told me that he had been counseling her for a long time, and nobody knew the things that I had come up with. Since he was a staff counselor, and had access to records, he gave me a letter from one of his patients, who I had never met, and asked me to analyze it as a test to see if it really worked. When done (yes I gave him several pages of single spaced information) he informed me that I had found things that had taken years for the psychologists to determine. I could tell you more, but you get the point. For a while I considered becoming certified in handwriting analysis, but for whatever reason I did not follow through. Fast forward till today and I have been wondering if there were any genealogists doing handwriting analysis. So glad to read your article and I think I will try to follow up. Thank you for sharing and confirming to me that I really should consider handwriting analysis of my ancestors.
Curt, I’m so happy that you found my blog today! Thanks for sharing your story. Good luck with using handwriting analysis in your genealogy!