On 9/16/2013 8:36 PM, singhals wrote: > Don Kirkman wrote: >> On Sun, 15 Sep 2013 11:52:28 +0100 (BST), Chris Dickinson >> <chris@dickinson.uk.net> wrote: >> >>> Cheryl wrote: >>> >>>> On the West coast of the pond, back in the 18th and 19th >>>> centuries, people's "marks" are frequently registered in a >>>> deed book where they live. >>> >>>> Is that true on the East Coast of the pond? IOW -- I have a >>>> signature mark of a man in Maryland in the 1750s; I'd like >>>> to confirm/refute that he's the same person as a man of the >>>> same name in England earlier for whom I can find no >>>> signature. Is there some way to find the "mark" of the 2nd man? >>> >>> >>> >>> I'm happy to be corrected, but I would think that nineteenth-century >>> marks were largely 'x'. >>> >>> However, early marks (at least in the area that I study) were highly >>> individual in earlier centuries - often the initial letter of >>> forename or surname, and sometimes quite elaborate. I'm not aware of >>> any book that lists such marks, but I have wondered on this list >>> before whether individuals used marks based on the smit marks on >>> their farms. The latter are recorded after 1817 - and I imagine could >>> go back centuries. >>> >>> http://www.geog.port.ac.uk/webmap/thelakes/html/topics/smitfram.htm >>> >>> I wasn't aware that books of marks were kept across the Pond. That's >>> very intriguing - and could be a key to some new gateways. Maryland >>> especially - as many Cumbrians settled there, and Cumbrians certainly >>> used distinctive marks. >> >> Much of my colonial record searching has been in Maryland, and when >> there is a mark it nearly always seems to be an "x", though I did see >> one this morning that looked as though some other mark had been >> covered with a heavier "x", but I couldn't distinguish what the >> underlying mark[s] might have been. This was from about 1775. > > I just saw another: 1701, Maryland, Baltimore county, deed: the "mark" > was a German W. The man's given name was William, and used the same > style W. > > Cheryl I posted earlier in the thread about the seals in American documents. I think there is a difference in what you are seeing and what I have seen. All of the "Seals" I have seen have been in Court ledger books. These seals have been squiggle circles, hence my interpretation that they were representation on the actual seal on the transcribed document. In these cases I would assume they are represent the seals used by a notary public. From what I have read in later post, the seals are hand drawn seals that represent something that the author of the document thought represented him. Not to be a put down, but an example; like the fancy flowers some young girls use to put on their notes and school work.