Crossing t’s and dotting i’s for genealogy

Floyd Ramsey became puzzled as he researched a local history project. Dolly Copp, a 19th-century farm woman, seemed gregarious, but fidgeted nervously with her necklace beads whenever a stagecoach stopped near her farm in Gorham, N.H.

“The beads part didn’t fit in,” Ramsey said.

Then he learned that Irene P. Lambert could produce a personality sketch from a sample of Copp’s handwriting.

Lambert concluded that although Copp was a strong-willed woman who enjoyed people, she also was self-conscious, afraid strangers would laugh at her. Fidgeting with the beads was a way to relieve nervous tension among those she didn’t know, like the people arriving on a stagecoach.

“Her analysis helped me to understand this complex personality better,” Ramsey said.

The story of Dolly Copp is now part of “Shrouded Memories: True Stories From the White Mountains of New Hampshire.”

With that analysis more than a decade ago, Lambert became one of the pioneers in a comparatively new tool in genealogical research: analyzing handwriting to better understand ancestors’ personalities.

Lambert, who lives in Stratford, Conn., and teaches handwriting analysis in adult evening schools, claims to have considerable success with genealogical handwriting analysis.

In 1998, she was tested by the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, which presented her with handwriting samples from James Ball, a colorful figure born about 1783, apparently in Virginia. She was told nothing about the person, not even his sex. She was told only that one writing sample came from a person who was about 30, and another when that same person was about 65 and suffering from rheumatism.

Her analysis closely paralleled the observations of two of Ball’s contemporaries, a newspaperman and a judge, and several latter-day biographers.

“In both specimens, there were strong literary-ability strokes. He had the ability to express himself well,” Lambert wrote in her analysis.

“In improvising verses, fiddling, and cooking he was particularly gifted,” wrote the newspaperman, William Quesenbury.

“In both specimens, the writer manifested self-confidence,” Lambert wrote.

Ball was “utterly convinced of his own invincibility,” one of the biographers wrote.

Lambert discovered handwriting analysis while working in medical management at a Midwestern hospital. She didn’t like her job and, when the hospital’s in-house newsletter did a feature on a handwriting analyst, she had her own writing analyzed. The process so intrigued her that she began home study courses with the International Graphoanalysis Society, eventually receiving a master’s designation from the society.

She looks for about 125 different traits in a writing sample. “When you see a lot of rounded writing, it is a soft person,” she said. Princess Diana’s handwriting was rounded. Prince Charles’? Sharp edges.

“It is no wonder they didn’t get along,” Lambert said.

The handwriting of Camilla Parker Bowles, now the Duchess of Cornwall and Prince Charles’ wife, is similar to that of Charles, she added.

Another trait Lambert analyzes is the degree of slant in a person’s writing. Those whose upstrokes slant sharply to the right are more emotional. People with a straight up and down strokes “are always assessing things, they’re usually quieter, they are going to think things through.”

Lambert watches for the size of letters, distance between letters, and practically every conceivable kind of stylistic flourish. When the loop in an “a” or an “o” is left open, it means something. How one dots an “i” and crosses a “t” matters.

Richard C. Roberts, head of the history and genealogy unit at the Connecticut State Library, says handwriting analysis “is a potential tool for trying to flesh out your ancestors.”

Over the last 25 or so years, there has been an increased emphasis among genealogists in learning more about ancestors than just, for example, when the person was born, married and died, he said. Roberts traces that interest at least in part to the huge popularity of Alex Haley’s novel based on his family history, “Roots: The Saga of an American Family.”

But an analysis of old handwriting can have potential problems, Lambert said.

An original copy of the writing is most valuable to get a sense, for example, of how hard the writer pressed down with a writing instrument.

“If you press very hard it means you have a reservoir of energy and emotion,” she said. A poor copy of a handwriting sample may not provide enough clues for a comprehensive analysis.

Although handwriting analysis in genealogical research is increasing, Lambert said, such analysis remains outside the mainstream of research.