#ArchivesSignatures

In the age of the email signature, there’s something beautiful about a handwritten name. Your signature is evidence of who you are and it is supposed to be as unique as a thumbprint (although famous forgeries exist). This month, we are celebrating #ArchivesSignatures for the National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) #ArchivesHashtagParty. 

Used to seal legal documents, end personal letters, and identify artwork and other artifacts, you can find all sorts of signatures in the Genealogy Center’s Archives. One of the more notable signatures found in the collection is that of Representative Ray Roberts. He hand-signed a letter congratulating a member of the 1965 Plano High School football team for being the first team in Collin County to win a State Championship.

One of the most common places you will see signatures is in yearbooks. The Genealogy Center Archives has a large collection of yearbooks from Plano ISD and Collin County. The majority of the collection consists of the Senior High Schools’ yearbooks, including the early editions of the Planonian from 1914 and 1923. Although most of the yearbooks in the collection do not have signatures since they were bought specifically for the archive, you will often find signatures in donated copies. We would love to expand the yearbook collection, so please contact us at genealogy@plano.gov if you have copies you would like to donate! We will accept any Collin County yearbook not currently in the collection.

The images below are from the 1943 Planonian:

Can you find more #ArchivesSignatures in the Collin County Images?