I'm not sure if this is the right subreddit, so if it isn't please direct me elsewhere. My grandfather is working on some genealogy and has a letter that we're trying to figure out the name on. The cursive is from 1840 or so, and appears to be somewhat different than modern cursive.
You can find the image below- http://i.imgur.com/PmOX8q6.jpg
What we are trying to figure out is the last name of the underlined name (Rebecca being the first). So far our thoughts are Gerry, Terry, or Perry. If you have any way to figure this out, or can direct us to sources that might have known examples of cursive from this era to compare it would be greatly appreciated.
Rebecca Gerry?
It's defiantly *erry.
You can compare the ery to the word 'certify' above
I see Rebecca Curry if that's any help.
I think it's Gerry. It's definitely not Terry. It would be easier to tell with more context, though, to get a better understanding of this person's handwriting.
Source: I read 19th-century documents all day at work?
The two letters are each written completely differently, so this one is very hard. The first instance looks a lot like Gerry, but the second one looks almost like Eerry. Definitely need more from this document.
Edit: My best guess is Gerry based on this, which includes various different forms of a capital G that look similar to the two in your document (including some that look like a capital E!).
You might have better help going to /r/handwriting
