Can anyone help me decipher this signature?

[LaBelleSauvage123]

I’m doing some family tree research and can’t find this person - it’s definitely a male. What do you think?

Well done, Oatgroat!

Wow well done Oatgroat! Impressive x

Go @Oatgroat ! Amazing what you were able to figure out with a few bits of info.

Thank you everyone. I do like a nice puzzle, and this one's worthy of "Who Do You Think You Are"!

Thats amazing! I'd just like to point out how close I was with Harris and Kyth... deductions . I thoroughly enjoyed being part of it op...discovered a fledgling interest. Look forward to your update.

Well done oatgroat I am so relieved we know also. Thanks op for the update. That was a real mystery !

First name could be Farris.

This needs to be in classics!

So - the story. Maybe be outing but I think I owe it to all you great detectives!

My great grandfather John known as Jack was born in London in the late 1800s. He had five siblings, one of whom was Mary Ann, known as Maisie. In 1902 he married my great grandmother Ada and my grandfather ( also John known as Jack) was born. Shortly after this the family emigrated to Canada and then moved to the US, where Jack Snr worked as a ‘machinist’( possibly on the railroad). Two more boys were born and Ada was pregnant with a fourth child, a girl, when some sort of separation occurred and Ada and the children returned to England. They were destitute and entered the workhouse ( Ada having given birth just after their return). The three boys spent the rest of their childhood in a children’s home which was an extension of the workhouse with their sister in and out, staying with relatives etc. I have a folder of letters in which Ada, other members of the family and the Salvation Army try to contact Jack. There are a number from a friend and neighbour of Ada’s in the US which accuse Jack of being with another woman. There are also a number of letters from Jack refuting this. In the last one ( to his brother) he says he is going to ‘disappear’ and asks his brother not to tell Ada of his whereabouts.

The rest of Jack Snrs family try to contact him without success. One of these is his sister Maisie, who is living in Italy with her husband. When he is killed in 1918 in France, she remarries Harambulous ( known either as Harris or Harry) Kythreatis, the son of a Cypriot interpreter and they live in Alexandria. She is 47 and he is 27 at the time of the letter! Hence the comments about growing a beard, being called an uncle etc. The stepfather comment I think is because Maisie had a daughter by her first marriage, also Maisie, who would have been 14 when the letter was written.
My next step is to try to trace the movements of my errant gt grandfather in the States!

Thanks again for all your help - it’s been much more fun doing this with others!

Wow, what an exciting story, thanks for sharing. Well done to Oatgroat too.

Absolutely amazing family history and mega thanks for sharing. You may be surprised at the amount of time I spent staring at that signature and then madly googling. All during a weekend when I ‘was too busy’ seemingly to do a humdrum but time-consuming task with my dp.
This has made me closer to opening and reading several shoeboxes of family letters brought over from the states. Siblings weren’t/aren’t interested but I could not leave them behind.
Well done oatgroat.

How fantastic. This is what future generations have lost now that most communication is done by email/messaging!

The letters are amazing. Some of them barely literate, others ( like the one quoted here) written in perfect prose. My gt grandfather’s letters are full of errors but vivid in their expression of feeling. I need to write a book really.

I have kept all the letters and cards my grandmother wrote to me. They are so much more evocative of her, give so much more sense of who she was. I also am so happy that when she became more elderly I had the foresight to ask her to write an account of her life for me. She did so over several years right up until she couldn’t write much anymore because it was too difficult for her arthritic hands. It was fantastic to learn so much about her, my grandfather and their life together.

That’s amazing!

I took a quick look at my great grandmother/father letters and there is an awful lot of ‘weather news’ going on

That is amazing! Thanks for sharing.

My Grandmother has written down all she knew about her upbringing & I keep thinking I should follow up on it, which is quite colourful. You have inspired me to start.