Hi Bonnie Samplers were a demonstration of skills learned An exam piece if you will, to show that a child or someone, usually a young lady had learned various needlework techniques Not only to her parents or teachers but to any prospective husband Clearly they were also a learning process in themselves Mike was just suggesting my great great grandmother merely copied another piece, which I doubt given the personal nature of samplers, as hers is the only one to have survived, and that by pure fluke, I can't compare it to any others A couple of lines from her sampler gives a flavour of the times perhaps, particularly the second line Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain but a woman who feareth the Lord she shall be praised Prov xxxi.30. If a man would not work neither shall he eat Thes iii.10. Incidentally her mother born 1834 gave a Christmas present of a leather cigar holder to her future husband in 1855, she wrote on it in a clear flowing hand, where did she learn from? probably her parents, her father was a painters labourer In 1830 when her parents married, both signed the register, when her grandparents married in 1807 Lambeth they both made their mark Nivard Ovington in Cornwall (UK) On 25/07/2014 23:33, Bonnie Ostler wrote: > The whole idea of samplers done by girls was to complete them under the > tutelage of their mother or some other adult female. It was a learning > exercise. If she was capable of doing it without instruction there would > not have been much reason for having her do it. > > Bonnie