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I cannot read this name, which is the name of one of the older sisters of my great-grandfather. It is supposed to be a german female name. This was written in 1878.

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Sample of handwriting by the same guy:

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2 Answers 2

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The name is Agnes.

You can compare each of the letters to those shown in this BYU Script Tutorial for German handwriting.

I extracted the relevant letters from the alphabet image on that site, and put them together in one image. I've included your image below for easy comparison.

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  • Thanks ! Are you 100% sure, or do you need me to do what PolyGeo tells me to do (that is, giving other samples of the same handwriting) ?
    – Bregalad
    Commented Nov 12, 2015 at 9:58
  • @Bregalad I'm quite sure, but it never hurts to have a bit more context. Also, for anyone referencing this in the future I think it would be useful if you could add a century date tag to the question (I'm assuming it's 19th-century but will let you add it).
    – Harry V.
    Commented Nov 12, 2015 at 12:10
  • @vevet So, now that I did the update, can you confirm or deny that the name is indeed Agnes ?
    – Bregalad
    Commented Nov 15, 2015 at 18:04
  • @Bregalad Yes there's no doubt in my mind it says Agnes
    – Harry V.
    Commented Nov 15, 2015 at 18:16
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+50

I also found it useful to have this PDF around for comparing the letters. The benefit being you can zoom it in quite a bit:
https://feefhs.org/sites/default/files/guide/german-gothic.pdf

Once you get an initial idea about what the letters are likely to be you can use the following tool to generate a sample which you can check against:
http://altdeutsche-schrift.de/adsschreiben.php#schriftfeld

example handwriting

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