Judy, There are a number of experts in reading that old handwriting. I've struggled through writing over 200 years old. What I found is the stuff between about 1800 and 1850 is unbelievably difficult. Sometimes you have to resort to tricks to find the docs even though there are indecies that, hopefully, are easier to read. The Genealogy and Heraldry society in Praha has published books that show the alphabet in script, both small and capital letters, for each 10 years of the 19th century - and then some! I've not got the book, but I know someone there who does. Unfortunately, it is also in Czech, so doesn't help more than just 'looking at the pictures'. You might try getting alphabetic pages with current letters and old German letters, including the Gothic versions. I know they helped me immensely when I was trying to figure out what the letters represented. There are also books to show you how to decipher the letters and words - I lucked out on finding some at a thrift shop that obviously had belonged at one time to a genealogist - and the family donated them in bulk to get rid of them..... Anettka