Sunday, October 2, 2011

Are These Two Signatures From The Same Person?






In late Sept. 2011 I received an unsolicited email from Footnote.com promoting their new War of Independence and War of 1812 docs. So I clicked over to see what they had to offer and I did a search on Samuel Weeks. There was only one result and it was a declaration (my choice of words) of a Samuel Weeks in Maine stating that he was in the War of 1812 and deserved (again my choice of words) to pension compensation. Then I saw the signature of this Samuel Weeks and the lights in my head were in over load.

This Samuel Weeks signature seems very similar to the Samuel C. Weeks signature in Weeks bible. Are these two signatures from the same person? If they are from the same person there are a lot of questions to be answered. For example:

Is the 1814 signature from Samuel C. Weeks father who is in Main? We show Samuel C. being born in 1804 in MD. Plus all of the census data for Samuel C. show him in MD and OH. Maybe we haven't found Samuel C's parents because we've been searching in the wrong state all these years. Maine has never been on our radar.

If the signatures are the same then Samuel C's father must have given him the bible and made the first few entries.

Any hand writing experts out there? Are these two signatures from the same person?

The War of 1812 doc referenced above is at www.footnote.com/image/271395053

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, These two signatures are not the same. If you look at the 'S' in Samuel one is a complete swoop and the other is only partial. The 'u' and 'e' in Samuel are separated in one the other it is not. The 'W' in Weeks is also slightly different in the loop and the 'k' and the 's' is also. The 's' in Weeks is a completed form in one with the 's' curlin a little downward, the other is not a complete 's' and swoops up at the end. I have had experience in translations and handwriting and am a researcher and genealogist. I am also a Weeks living in Maine. If your ancestors showing records in MD and OH then it might be possible no relation in ME. My Weeks family in New England stem from Leonards Weeks of Portsmouth/Greenland New Hampshire. There is a book on this family by Chapman.

Bob Weeks said...

Thanks so much for your comments. This is exactly the type of responce I was hoping for. To me the two sigs looked very similar but I have no experience in these matters.

BTW, is your family YDNA posted some where on line?