Hello Barbara Thanks for the useful link to a course on old handwriting - a great place to start. Those who want to take the subject further, in a more academic vein, might try a standard work on the subject which has the advantage of being Scottish in its specialisation. (There were some important differences between the standard styles in old Scotland compared with ye olde Englonde!) It is: Grant G. Simpson: "Scottish handwriting 1150-1650 - an introduction to the reading of documents" (Edinburgh: Bratton Publishing, 1973) ISBN: 0859750027 It covers such documents as testaments, deeds, account books, and so on - those documents which just MIGHT, if you're very lucky, take that family traced through OPRs to the late 1600s that generation or two further back. I think it is still in print. If this information has appeared before, please excuse me, as I am relatively new to the Dunbartonshire group. Best wishes Arthur Arthur F. Jones afjones@mailhost.sol.co.uk