Have you ever heard of the Joshua tree principle? Learning to read a foreign language document, an old script, or even somebody else’s cursive on a birth record is a lot like a little design trick called the Joshua tree principle. It is adapted from Robin Williams's The Non-Designer's Design Book and goes something like this:
"Many years ago I received a tree identification book for Christmas. I was at my parents’ home, and after all the gifts had been opened I decided to go out and identify the trees in the neighborhood. Before I went out, I read through part of the book. The first tree in the book was the Joshua tree because it took only two clues to identify it. Now, the Joshua tree is a really weird-looking tree and I looked at that picture and said to myself, 'Oh, we don’t have that kind of tree in northern California. That is a weird looking tree. I would know if I saw that tree, and I’ve never seen one before.' So I took my book and went outside. My parents lived in a cul-de-sac of six homes. Four of those homes had Joshua trees in the front yard. I had lived in that house for 13 years, and I had never seen a Joshua tree. I took a walk around the block, and there must have been a sale at the nursery when everyone was landscaping their new homes—at least 80 percent of the homes had Joshua trees in the front yards. And I had never seen one before! Once I was conscious of the tree, once I could name it, I saw it everywhere. Which is exactly my point. Once you can name something, you’re conscious of it. You have power over it. You own it. You’re in control."
Similar to trees, once you can recognize the letters you are indexing, you are in control of reading difficult to nearly impossible handwriting. Provided below are a few helpful items to get you started:
- Dutch Alphabet
- French Alphabet
- German Alphabet
- Italian Alphabet
- Old English Alphabet
- Polish Alphabet
- Portuguese Alphabet
- Russian Alphabet
- Scandinavian Alphabet
- Spanish Alphabet
Remember, there are always more in-depth handwriting helps on the Learning Center at familysearch.org, or elsewhere on the Internet. Once you conquer the curve, you will be in control! If you have rights to handwriting helps you think FamilySearch indexing should distribute or post, feel free to contact us at fsindexing@familysearch.org.
