Comparison of Signatures

[Malcolm173]

I don’t know whether anyone can help with this.

I’m trying to find out whether a man called Alfred Pope, who was married to a Martha Good in 1863, was same man who married my great aunt, Kate Dunstan, in 1877.  I have copies of the parish records for both marriages and, although the signatures aren’t the same, there are similarities.

I’ve attached a copy showing both and I’d be grateful for opinions as to the likelihood of this being the same person.  I can provide a link to the two documents if that helps.

Many thanks

Malcolm

[Gadget]

Does the second certificate have Alfred's status as widower or single?

There are similarities but the As are different so I'm not at all sure that they are the same.

[softly softly]

Previous post re Alfred Pope.

https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=327044.0;topicseen

John

[IgorStrav]

In my (non expert) opinion, I don't think someone changes the way they write the capital A at the front of their signature over time, so I'd say these are two different Alfred Popes.

[gpneale]

Almost certainly not the same hand, imo.

[Malcolm173]

Many thanks for your feedback about this.

The context is on another part of this site (John has provided the link above).  If the two Alfreds were the same person then it would have been bigamy.  Given the penalties they would be risking, I suppose it’s possible that someone would want to change their signature in this situation, but I’ve no idea whether this would have applied in the 1870s!

I can’t see any way proving that it was the same person, but it was worth having a look at these documents to see if they helped.

[Rena]

Compare the styles of the capital "As";  and "Ps", which are different

Also the lower case "r" are different styles.

I'd say two different persons of differing ages, or had different teachers.

[Ruskie]

It’s a ‘no’ from me. 

[Treetotal]

....and a no from too.
Carol