I received the Marriage License of my John F. Saunders and wife Georgiana Kitchen, married in Fairfax County, December 16, 1879, in hopes of finding the names of John's parents. The are listed, but I can not decipher the handwriting. I've tried to compare each letter of the names with other writing on the license, but it doesn't help. Does anyone have any suggestions? Kathie

My Saunders left Fairfax County before 1820, so I can't help you directly, but I've had the same problem. I go through the alphabet with each letter and write down all the possibilities. Then I cross off the letters that appear elsewhere in the document that don't compare and play with what's left, with special attention to the ones that could be consonants. Maybe someone will do a Saunders lookup for you in the 1860 and/or 1870 Fairfax County census; if John married at the usual age, you might find him there with his parents. Also post John and Georgiana at the Sanders, Saunders, and Sanders/ Saunders message boards at Rootsweb. Don't forget to search each message board beforehand for clues. You might find someone who is researching Saunders in the same time period in Fairfax County. Betsy -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2001 5:50 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [VAFairfa] DECIPHERING HANDWRITING I received the Marriage License of my John F. Saunders and wife Georgiana Kitchen, married in Fairfax County, December 16, 1879, in hopes of finding the names of John's parents. The are listed, but I can not decipher the handwriting. I've tried to compare each letter of the names with other writing on the license, but it doesn't help. Does anyone have any suggestions? Kathie ==== VAFAIRFA Mailing List ==== E-mail List Mom at mailto:[email protected] http://www.rootsweb.com/~vafairfa/ ============================== To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237