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Many of our
ancestors, especially from the German areas, used a
handwriting style that is not used anymore today.
The name of the old
German writing depends on what kind of writing style it is.
The most well known are: Gothic, Fracture, Current,
Offenbacher and
Sütterlin.
More than 20
different letter styles have been used in
the German Empire, Austrian/Hungarian
Empire and in Switzerland in the past centuries. Some
examples known are: Nürnberger
style, Niederrheinisch style,
Schwäbisch style, Dresdner
style, Offenbacher style, Swiss
style and many more.
The
amount of people that are able to read the old documents is
dwindling as time goes on. Even native German hobby
genealogists today have a challenging time understanding the
different old handwriting styles; often because of poor
handwriting.
If the old German
handwriting is a challenge for you, try to compare the
unidentified letters in your documents with one of our
different lists. Please note, that every recorder of
documents in the past centuries did not always have nice
handwriting as shown in our lists. Oftentimes you will only
be able to read the letters because you can understand the
rest of the word.
If the challenge is
too big for you, please give us a try.
We also offer
seminars where you can learn to read and write some of these
old letter styles. For more information about our seminars
please follow this link.
Where does German
handwriting come
from?
Letter samples:
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