While you’ve been discovering your ancestors’ names, learning about where and when they lived and died, and looking at old family photos, have you ever wished you could meet your forebears? Who were the people behind the names, dates, and faces, and what were they like? Did they have anything in common with you other than genetic makeup?
Names, dates, places, and photos give us tantalizing clues about our ancestors, but we can only guess what they were like as people. Those old daguerreotypes make everyone look so stiff and stern, it’s hard to tell what kind of people they really were. Yet there is a way to meet your ancestors as people. If you are fortunate enough to have samples of your ancestors’ handwriting, you can learn about their personalities.
A History of Handwriting Analysis
Awareness of the relationship between writing (or printing) and character is nothing new. Aristotle, Confucius, and Shakespeare all commented on the relationship between one’s character and the way one writes. Modern scientific methods have led the Library of Congress to classify handwriting analysis (schools of which may be called graphology or graphoanalysis) as a social science. Like medicine, it is an empirical discipline. The experience and talents of the practitioner make a big difference in the results. Just as some physicians are better diagnosticians, some analysts are better at discerning character. Although most practitioners use similar principles, differences in their experience and abilities affect their findings.
Handwriting Is Unique
Although some people’s writing may look quite similar, in fact, everyone’s handwriting is unique, allowing experts to testify in court about whose writing was really on that will. That’s because handwriting is really brainwriting, and each of us has a unique personality. Handwriting is like an electrocardiogram of the brain that a handwriting analyst can interpret into various personality traits and behavior patterns.
Is It Chance?
Some people think handwriting is simply a matter of pure habit or learning, but if that were the case, everyone trained in the same system would write in a very similar fashion.
But neither is it just random chance that we write the way we do. Studies have shown that all of a person’s movements, including handwriting, gait, and gestures, are related. There is something at the core of each of us that is reflected in our movements, and handwriting freezes that movement so that we may understand its meaning.
Businesses around the world have found that handwriting analysis, when done by a well-qualified analyst, is invaluable in hiring and in personnel work. I work in a company that specializes in corporate handwriting analysis, and our clients, ranging from Fortune 500 companies to family businesses, find handwriting analysis more helpful than psychological personality tests in personnel decision-making and team building. In France, job applications must be handwritten, and in Israel, new kibbutz members are accepted only after their handwriting has been analyzed.
What Does Handwriting Reveal?
Hundreds of personality traits can be evaluated through handwriting. Traits that some scientists believe have at least a fifty percent genetic component include aggression, anxiety, extroversion or introversion, sociability, creativity, alcoholism, impulsivity, schizophrenia, dominance, leadership ability, intelligence, and shyness.
However, there are many things that can’t be determined from handwriting: age, gender, race, religion, financial status, values, and profession (although aptitudes are apparent in handwriting, people don’t always use their aptitudes in their professional lives).
Different Strokes for Different Folks
Of course, how a person learned to write affects his or her handwriting. The method of writing is called the “copybook,” after the way people learned in past times to copy writing from an instructional copybook. But we all, including writing teachers, deviate from what we were taught, even if only in subtle ways. It is precisely those subtle differences that are the keys to analyzing handwriting.
For example, almost all American adults learned the Palmer or Zaner-Bloser method of handwriting. If you did, you were taught that your upper loops (“l”s, “h”s, “k”s) should be about two-and-a-half to three times the size of your small letters (vowels, for example).
Figure 1. The Palmer method.
What if you make your upper loops four times the height of small letters? That could indicate an interest or ability in the abstract (ideas, philosophy, religion, etc.). More precise information would depend on other factors in your writing.
Why Copybooks Are Crucial
However, what if you had discovered the fountain of youth, and had actually learned to write in 1847, according to the model below?
Figure 2. Example from Martin copybook in Ray Nash, “Writing: Some Early American Writing Books and Masters,” Harvard University Library Bulletin, 1943, page 19.
A long life would probably have made you somewhat philosophical, but a handwriting analyst might think you even more philosophically inclined than you are if information about your copybook was not given. Of course you wouldn’t look your age, but even if you did, many handwriting analysts would not be aware of the copybook differences and ask. That’s why it’s important for a handwriting analyst to be aware of where and when a person learned to write.
From the sixteenth century until the nineteenth, most people learned to write from self-styled “writing masters.” I have samples of nine copybooks from the eighteenth century and eleven from the nineteenth century, and that is a small sample. Even in the late nineteenth century, writing masters remained prominent in developing penmanship models. Many people have heard of “Spencerian” writing, named for the American penmanship teacher Platt Rogers Spencer, who lived from 1800–1864. Quite a few of these masters developed their own particular forms in handwriting, which they passed on to their students through the copybooks they published and sold.
So when a handwriting analyst starts to look for deviations from the “standard,” it is vital to know what that standard is. The uniformity in copybook learning that analysts assume today was not the case before this century. Although some copybooks were similar enough to contemporary ones that no special considerations need to be made, this is not usually the case, especially for writing learned before the end of the Civil War.
What Analysts Examine
Apart from how individual letters are formed, handwriting analysts look at an enormous variety of factors. They note the pressure of the writer’s hand on the pen and paper, the quality of the line of writing (sharp or pasty edges), and the rhythm or flow of writing. They measure the slant of the writing, the width of the letters, the spaces between letters, and the spaces between words and lines. The size and shape of the margins, the straightness or curvy quality of the lines of writing, and many other factors are taken into account. Some of these factors are affected by the copybook style, and some are not.
Furthermore, some of these characteristics are affected by the nature of the pen (quill or steel tip) and the quality of the paper. For example, the absorbency or roughness of the paper can influence the evaluation of the pressure used and the fluidity of the writing. Contemporary analysts don’t have to be concerned with the effects of old types of pens and paper on the writing they analyze, so many are not aware of it. However, it can be critical in analyzing some genealogical samples.
Context Is All-Important
The popularization of graphology has led to magazine articles and supermarket books reporting that if you form a letter a particular way it means a particular thing. If you pick up a supermarket graphology book, it may tell you that if you make your “y”s a certain way, you’re sexy. That’s only one possible meaning. Good analysts never consider handwriting features in isolation. Those “y”s could mean you’re determined, or you like variety, or many other things, depending on other features in your writing.
Any single feature of the writing is meaningless out of context. It’s like flour in a recipe. When you see a cake, you don’t think of flour, eggs, and sugar. Those things, taken separately, taste and feel different than they do in combination. The result in baking—and in graphology—is determined by what any single feature is combined with; you could get anything from a chocolate torte to papier-maché, and the equivalent in terms of personality.
Strong Flavors
Yet there are certain aspects of handwriting that are strong influences in themselves, and may give a noticeable flavor to personality. For example, which writer do you think is more likely to prefer that things occur in an orderly, predictable way, to have habits and routines?
Figures 3 and 4. Structure examples, from the author’s
collection.
Which writer is more likely to give in easily?
Figures 5 and 6. Examples of angles and garlands, from the author’s collection.
Cultural Influences
But even some features, such as the “strong flavors,” have to be considered in terms of copybook learning and the cultural influences of time and place. Did the writer develop those features because of the influence of a unique personality, or was the writer merely adhering to convention as best he could? In certain countries—Russia, for example—writing was drilled so strongly into students and conformity was so strongly emphasized that it took quite an independent personality to show marked individuality in handwriting (or anything else, for that matter).
Contemporary handwriting analysts require a “spontaneous sample.” They don’t want writing that is copied, but writing that occurs when the person is focused on the content, not the form, of the writing. Handwriting analysts don’t analyze calligraphy as handwriting. Trying to produce a particular impression in writing, as extreme conformity does, requires different rules of analysis. It is important to recognize when those rules are appropriate for writing from certain time periods in particular societies.
Figures 7a, b, and c. Samples of writing from Bolivia, Germany, and the United States. All from Erik Blumenthal, editor, “Schulscriften der verschedenen lander,” in Grapholoia IV, Berne: Huber, 1957.
An American handwriting analyst might consider German writing to have extreme deviations if the analyst was unaware that the person learned to write in Germany before moving to the United States. (There are many German copybooks from the early twentieth century, to confuse matters even further.) The German writer might well be different from the average American for cultural reasons. An angular writer, with other supporting features, would probably be a tough negotiator. Donald Trump has incredibly angular handwriting!
Figure 8. Donald Trump’s signature, from the author’s
collection.
However, an analyst couldn’t be sure if the individual was a tough negotiator or a conventional type without knowing the copybook. This is true for both contemporary and old handwriting.
Fortunately, there are many indications in handwriting that do stand up across countries and centuries. It is important that the handwriting analyst know which features can be considered individual differentiations in your ancestor’s writing; otherwise, personality traits may be attributed to your ancestor that are really just the writing conventions of the time.
Personality and Society
Another aspect of culture which may be important is a knowledge of the society in which your ancestor learned to write. One client sent me a sample of an ancestor who had left England as a young man. The sample was a letter from a gold-mining camp. The man’s writing showed him to be very independent, quite an individualist, but not in a negative way. (Analysts can pick up indications of dishonesty, deceit, substance abuse, and sensual overindulgence, to name just a few traits.) He looked like quite an entrepreneur. It was important to know that had he stayed in England, he would have appeared very different.
In the class-conscious, conformist English society of the time, any show of individualism would have been regarded with horror in the social class from which he came. This probably would have led to indications of stress in his handwriting, which could be misinterpreted if the analyst was ignorant of the social circumstances. Fortunately he found a perfect setting for his abilities in the California gold rush. After receiving the analysis, the descendant told me that he had become quite influential and prosperous.
Why Age Counts
It is important to have some idea of the age of your ancestor, as well as information on his or her education or profession, as this indicates how practiced a writer he or she was likely to have been. A very polished and fluent handwriting produced by a twelve-year-old would lead us to attribute unusual ability. The same writing by a forty-year-old would still indicate a well-integrated and intelligent person, but would not be nearly as remarkable.
Figure 9. George Bickham, “The Universal Penman,” London, 1943.
George Washington learned “roundhand,” as above. Look how he changed from the copybook as he matured.
Figure 10. Washington’s signatures, ages 12, 17, 25, 70, from Anonymous, “Handwriting of Washington,” The Educator, vol. 51, no. 6, Feb. 1946, page 12.
It is important to know a writer’s age, as that influences the degree of differentiation. John Quincy Adams, however, adhered closely to copybook. He probably cared a lot about propriety and was a stickler for doing things right.
Figure 11. J. Q. Adams’s writing, from Harvard University manuscript collection.
Compare Washington’s writing with that of an ordinary citizen of the day. Washington’s looks smoother, more balanced, flowing, and coordinated. Washington had lots of writing practice, but that kind of coordination requires a well-integrated personality. A disturbed personality may show in an unrhythmic quality in the writing. Beethoven was a genius, but he had serious personal problems.
Figures 12a, b, and c. Sample of Washington’s contemporary from New England Historic Genealogical Society collection. Beethoven’s sample from Josef Ranald, Pens and Personalities, New York: Twain, 1958, page 86.
Does Your Writing Change?
Let’s hope the writing on your grocery lists differs somewhat from that of your love letters. Your writing reflects you at the moment you wrote, and that includes your moods. Unless you are passionate about supermarkets, we’d expect more emotion in the love letters. Furthermore, are you the same person today you were twenty years ago? If so, your writing will be essentially the same, but if you’ve changed, it will be different to the degree that you’ve changed. If you are under stress, that, too, can change writing.
Figure 13. Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address and letter, Library of Congress.
Does one writing seem more “emotional” to you? Lincoln was much more emotional writing the Gettysburg Address, the second sample. The line of writing is thicker, yet pastier, with more pressure. The letter shows much more control in the line of writing. Although sympathetic, it was not written in an emotional mood.
One client sent me a letter written by her ancestor to the government, the last in a series he had written over a span of years, trying to rectify an injustice. The letter showed anger and temper. Fortunately I knew the circumstances of the letter. If I had had only that letter, I would have said the author was angry when writing, but I couldn’t have said whether he was a habitually angry person. Even more fortunately, the client had another letter which had been written years before under different circumstances, which did not show anger or temper.
This is why it is good to have more than one sample of writing, from a different time, for any individual. Handwriting is a picture of the person at the moment it was written, and you need to see a person in a variety of circumstances to get the full range of personality. One letter will give you a portrait of the ancestor at the moment the letter was written, and of course, many aspects of personality, such as intelligence or manual dexterity, are not much affected by mood.
Your handwriting also alters with physical infirmities (arthritis, etc.), mood, certain medications, and degree of inebriation, but certain basic characteristics stay the same (except with true multiple personalities). That’s why it is important to know the circumstances under which a document was written.
Artistic License
If you have artistic inclinations or simply love art, you may have an intuitive reaction to handwriting. That’s because part of handwriting analysis relies on the unconscious symbolism in handwriting. For example, one of my grandfathers made a heart formation in certain letters. That can indicate a need or wish for love, and it was validated by other features of his writing. His wife, my grandmother, showed extreme reserve, pride, and dignity. This gave me a clue as to why their marriage was not happy.
You can use your intuitive ability in another way. Simply take a dry pen and trace over the writing of your ancestors. You may get a certain “feel” as you form the same strokes of writing as your ancestor did.
Caveats
In earlier times, writing was not a universal skill. People often relied on scribes to write letters. The rich who could write sometimes used secretaries. Make sure that it is your ancestor’s handwriting. One way is to look for how congruent the signature is with the writing. (A signature of “X” is a dead giveaway.)
Should you wish to get to know your ancestors on a personal level, here are some questions to ask your handwriting analyst:
- Are you certified by a national handwriting analysis organization?
- How long have you been certified? (Five or more years is likely to give a better result. Practice does help.)
- What information do you need to take into consideration in analyzing my ancestor’s handwriting? (This should include, at minimum, your ancestor’s approximate age at the time of writing—young adult, middle aged, or elderly is sufficient, if not ideal—any physical infirmities or special circumstances at the time of writing, the country and time period when your ancestor learned to write, and, depending on the time period, information about the quality of the paper.)
- Is this sample sufficient to give an in-depth analysis? If not, what kinds of things can you tell?
- What kind of report will I receive? What kind of information will it contain? How long will it be? Will it be a presentation folder or a typed report?
If you are lucky enough to have documents handwritten by your ancestors, you command a resource that will enable you to gain access to some of the most personal and significant aspects of their personalities and to attain an unprecedented degree of closeness to those whose lives contributed so much to your own.
Hedy Bookin-Weiner holds degrees in psychology, sociology, and handwriting analysis. She received her doctorate from Harvard University and is designated a Certified Graphoanalyst by the International Graphoanalysis Society. Dr. Bookin-Weiner is a member of the American Board of Forensic Handwriting Analysis and the Human Graphics Center.
For Further Information
Dr. Bookin-Weiner is available for consultations, as well as lectures and community programs in the greater Boston area:
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