Genealogy Chat

hello wonder if you can help me? have a wedding certificate of mygreat grandad and where the witness has signed , ,it says x is the mark of john patrick rooney.... does this mean he could not write? i tracked down HIS wedding certificate ( i am assuming its the same person) , ,but on his own certificate 4 years earlier he has actually signed his name. does this mean...i have the wrong person ? , or is there another reason for this x mark of thingy?....cheers in advance. sean

yes it does mean he could not write not to many could then sandra

My understanding of "X ... his/her mark" means that that person when asked to sign stated that they were illiterate - or indicated as such by just putting an x in the place for a signature. Of course someone who could not read or write might subsequently develop a signature for officaldom - people had their pride than as now....

Having an X on any certificate can be quite erroneous for you to assume they could not read or write. Whereas the mark x is always taken by most people to mean the person could not read or write, the actual facts are incorrect. Very often the person would be asked to just put his/her mark, so that person did as they were told! There are many cases when we quite wrongly assume our forbears are illiterate. Sometimes the person issuing the certificate would assume wrongly that the person was illiterate as well. One of the first rules of Family History is if you make assumptions, whatever those assumptions are, then you must prove your assumption right or wrong and that goes for illiteracy as well. I have a few x's on certs and I know they were literate. Janet

I have a wedding cert where the wife has signed with an x and the man has signed his name. But I know that the woman could read and write . Kim

Janet - you took the words out of my mouth. We can never assume. Sometimes someone could write - but not very much more than the name learned specially. Joy

I've found that on all the certs for my family pre-1860ish X marked their signature. Post about 1860 they all wrote. But as to assumptions - I have a Will from a great-great uncle, who was unable to sign, not because he couldn't write, but because he went blind in later life. Interestingly, one of his beneficiaries' names was incorrectly recorded as Hocking instead of Hawkins. i don't know if this was because he was unable to read it through himself that this wasn't spotted - he had a Cornish accent so the people writing it down may have misheard what he said. nell

Great-granny made her mark when registering my grandfather's birth, but 18 years earlier she had signed her name when she married. I've always assumed that officialdom had demanded her mark. But I could invent other scenarios, which include her not being my great-granny at all! Brenda

I too have a distant ancestor who signed his name as an apprentice on a merchant ship in 1867, but made his mark on his marriage certificate in 1877! I think he was just lazy! I know he was the same man. Wendy

thanks everyone for your replies ! sean

Sometimes people could read perfectly well but not write, so I don't think they would be classed as fully 'illiterate'.