War Diaries Talk

Difficult handwriting help.

  • Tredegar by Tredegar

    After having to peruse many pages of difficult handwriting I have utilized the web for helping me in my endeavors. I have recently begun using the Commonwealth War Graves Commission web site for help. It has a search function and allows you to filter by date, unit, name and many other parameters. This has helped me to find the soldiers name and by utilizing that I can see how the author forms his letters.

    For faint handwriting I magnify till the letters are almost a centimeter tall and the faintness goes away and becomes more legible. It's not perfect but it does help.

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  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    Excellent advice - thanks! I'm sure others will find it useful too.

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  • SarahtheEntwife by SarahtheEntwife

    For places, I've found it useful if there are multiple places mentioned in one page to zoom in to the map when you identify one, and often the others will be nearby. This isn't a much help with trench names or ones that have changed, though.

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  • marie.eklidvirginmedia.com by marie.eklidvirginmedia.com

    If you are not sure of the place name you can google it. for example - Puchvillers WW1, then you can get an idea of where it is. This helps when the place name in the diary is incorrectly spelled.

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  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    Again, very useful advice. Thanks all!

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  • bje by bje

    I've found the Lives of the First World War website useful for names I couldn't read. If you can make out a few of the letters you can use wildcards for those you're not sure of, and use regiment, rank etc to confirm.

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  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    I do that too - it's often a great help 😃

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