Ancestors Literate or Not?

He Couldn't Sign His Name

The likelihood that some of your nineteenth-century working-class ancestors couldn’t sign the marriage registers because they were illiterate is pretty high. Although literacy rates for both men and women rose throughout the eighteenth century, by the 1780s, it is estimated that only 68 % of men and 39 % of women in England could sign their names.

Industrialisation (1780-1850) did not necessarily bring greater degrees of literacy. Most of the manual jobs in a textile factory did not require the ability to read or write, for example. Before 1830, it is generally believed that the literacy rates for both men and women fell in many industrialising areas, particularly Lancashire. Indeed, between 1810 and 1820 literacy rates for women in Manchester may have been as low as 19 per cent.

Key words: European, Europe, ancestors, ancestry, genealogy, family history, England