My high school senior nephew cannot read or write cursive

[csziggy]

109. That's what I have been wondering as I read this thread!

I do a lot of genealogical research which includes a lot of historical research. I have to be able to read cursive in order to do these things.

I guess I went backwards at this - as I was learning to read old documents to help my Mom with her family research I learned to type while I was transcribing the old wills, deeds and other records. This was in the early 1960s - and I learned to type on an Olivetti typewriter that was probably fifty years old at that time.

Just last week I scanned letters my father wrote home during World War II - interesting from a family point of view but also from a historical perspective: http://www.democraticunderground.com/11631295

My husband's family has letters written from a great? grandfather to his wife when he was off at an Indiana Quaker meeting. It turned out that the particular meeting was the one at which the Quakers split over abolitionism - another historical event expanded by a personal narration and made more relevant to younger generations by the family linkage. ( The Indiana Separation of 1842 and the Limits of Quaker Anti-Slavery, Ryan Jordan, Quaker History, Vol. 89, No. 1 (Spring 2000), pp. 1-27)

Right now I am attempting to read cursive writing of records in French to find ancestors who lived in Quebec, Canada. I read a little Spanish so French is a challenge!