Recently I happily confirmed that an ancestor I found on the World War I draft registration and the World War II "Old Man's Draft" Registration were the same person. The addresses worked with census and city directories and the signature was the same - almost identical. It's a special thrill to have the signature of an ancestor!
However, finding this person's naturalization papers has been fraught with issues as the name is common, there are at least five persons with the name in just one city, dozens within a state, Fold3 and Ancestry have microfilm copies that show some final papers and in the back of the front image you can see papers that are covered over that might not have been filmed individually, none of the addresses seem to match, family groups are wrong or not revealed. (Oh how I wish I were rolling up my sleeves, wearing gloves, to turn the pages of the actual paper in an archive!)
It's a temptation to look at the signatures for a match!
I looked at the signatures on several final papers in which there is no address given and no family mentioned and I noticed that these signatures, different from that of the court clerk or other officials who also wrote on the papers, were very much alike.
The reason is that in those pre typewriter and computer days there was a huge emphasis on perfect penmanship in schools. The individuality you see in penmanship in America - using the signers of the Declaration of Independence as an example - versus men educated in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, reveals this emphasis. Additionally, there seems to be a difference in the signature and handwriting of those who did a lot of it and those whose literacy was confined to signing their name, something they must have practiced over and over since they would not use handwriting on a daily basis. Sometimes you will see the signature of a woman who is otherwise unschooled which looks to be that of today's second grader though she is an intelligent and mature woman. There was so little emphasis on women having education that even some noble women never learned to write their name.
But to write your own name was to be educated well past those who could only make their mark - an X- while someone else signed that they had witnessed this!
Therefore, signature alone cannot be used as evidence enough to accept that a person is the ancestor you seek! There must still be other evidence to proof it. I know you may be tempted to hire a professional graphologist or handwriting analysis person!
