William Hatcher Copy of Signature

Should this image with the existing title be attached to his profile? Leaves the impression this is his signature, while the discussion below and in the profile appears to acknowledge this is likely the handwriting of the Deputy Court Clerk from the Court Record copy.

William's signature

My thanks must first go to John Gillon for sending me a copy of the "will" or "gift of deed" of William Hatcher of HenricoCo, VA. When told by John that this was the signature of William Hatcher, I had to do a double-take and say NO WAY! How do you get Hatcher out of THIS? There was only one way to solve this mystery - consult with the experts on the Library of Virginia email list. And they came through with the answers as they always have.

I supplied them with the image of just the signature and asked what this name was, what the colon after the name signified [if anything] and what did the words following the name mean. I also gave the date of this document. Almost immediately I received a response from H B Gill telling me the name appeared to be HATCH. The colon was used to signify an abbreviation - Hatch: equates to Hatcher. The words following the signature translate to "seald with red wax." H B also surmised that the signer was likely an older man born in the early 17th century. He certainly hit THAT nail on the head. Paul Drake also stated that this signature appeared to be in the older Elizabethan style.

I believed, of course, that this was an original copy of William's will since we do see different styles of writing in this document, but a message from Kathleen Much sent us back to the drawing board. I had no idea whether this was a "loose" document (the original) or whether it came from the Will Books of HenricoCo. Paul Drake, after looking at the entire document, believed this document came from the Will Book and was written by the recording clerk. Now I've seen many originals, although few this early, and it has always been relatively easy to distinguish between an original signature and a document written entirely by the recording clerk - the signatures are always in the same writing of the clerk.

But Thomas Moore states, "Often, when writing the wills into a will book for recording, the clerk would attempt to closely copy the look of the real signatures on the original, so it really is difficult to know for certain." This does appear to be true in this case. This clerk even went so far as to include the words "seald with red wax" when, as Paul states, "Had the seal ever been there or there when the document was viewed, it would have been silly and of no legal effect whatever for those words to have been so written."

Although having William's signature is a researcher's dream, I have to say that the most important lesson I\'ve learned from our conversations is that a recording clerk would attempt to copy signatures. This now makes me wonder how many of us have made assumptions in the past in determining whether we are looking at an original or a recorder's copy.

My thanks to all who have assisted in solving this mystery!

---Nel Hatcher

William Hatcher's signature.