Forensic Handwriting Analysis

When you have questions about who wrote or signed a document, wrote a threating note in a workplace, or sent anonymous writing, a forensic document examiner, who specialized in handwriting identification can help. A thorough forensic handwriting or signature analysis has tell-tale signs if a signature is forged or who hand wrote something.

A forensic handwriting analyst looks for both significantly similar and significantly different handwriting patterns and related variations of those handwriting characteristics.

With the right tools and tried-and-true handwriting and signature analysis techniques, a court qualified document examiner and handwriting expert can uncover the truth.

What Does a Forensic Handwriting Analyst Do?

It is said a person never signs their name identically or writes identically more than once. That’s because each person has unique handwriting characteristics and variations in their writing and most are nearly impossible to duplicate.

In author identification and signature verification examinations, scientific techniques are employed to find patterns of handwriting characteristics which fall within or outside a person’s natural variation in a person’s writing. Significantly similar handwriting characteristics falling within a person’s range of natural variation indicate the same person wrote the document or signature. Conversely, significantly different hand writing characteristics falling outside a person’s range of natural variations indicate a different person authored the document or signature.

Additionally, software tools and techniques are used to determine if there is evidence of digital manipulation used during cut or copy and paste forgery.

Author Identification

Who wrote that?

When you find anonymous writing and need to know the author, a forensic handwriting analyst can help. The handwriting expert sees the details an untrained eye can’t. By carefully analyzing the writing and utilizing a suite of tools and techniques, a handwriting expert forms an opinion as to whether or not the writing in question was written by a particular person.

Forensic handwriting analysis uses the comparison writing you provide to form opinions as to who authored them.  When you have this, you can hold those responsible for anonymous writing accountable and create a safe environment for your employees, family and yourself.

Some examples of anonymous writing include threat letters,  angry notes to neighbors and anonymous notes in the workplace.

A holographic (handwritten) will is an example of author identification of the body of the will and signature verification of the signature.

Signature Verification

Who really signed this document? Is it a forged signature?

Signature forgery is one of the most common types of forgery and can have drastic consequences since the forger may end up facing criminal charges.

There are multiple ways to forge a signature. Some methods used to forge signatures include “cut or copy and paste” techniques, freehand simulation and  tracing.

• Cut or copy and paste forgery, also called digital manipulation, occurs when a person uses various computer programs to “cut or crop” the signature or section from one document and “paste” it onto another document seen on the computer screen. This altered document is then usually printed out and presented as genuine. Document examiners have techniques they use to discover if a signature has been cut or copy and pasted onto another document.  As a side note, there is a difference between a digitally manipulated cut and pasted signature/section and a digitally manipulated copy and pasted signature/section of a document.

        Although rarely seen today, some people still employ the old-fashioned way of using scissors to cut a genuine signature

        from an original document and then gluing (pasting) it onto another document. After making a photocopy of a fraudulent

        document, the one with the “cut-and-pasted” signature is destroyed.

        Forensic document examiners (also known as handwriting experts) are trained to detect both these types of

        cut or copy and paste forgery.

• Freehand simulation is probably the most frequently used method to create a forged signature. The person drawing the forged signature freehand has probably spent many hours attempting to copy someone’s genuine signature. By analyzing and comparing a forged signature to numerous samples of a person’s real signatures, a forensic document examiner, a.k.a. handwriting expert, forms an opinion if the signature is genuine or not.

• Tracing a genuine signature from one document onto another document can create an almost exact duplicate of a genuine signature. The forger then writes over the impression or pencil marks or carbon paper trying to carefully follow the lines left by tracing. A court qualified handwriting expert knows what signs to look for to conclude a signature was traced. A traced signature may look perfect but lacks the fluidity and good line quality of someone’s genuine signature.

A majority of questioned signature examinations are requested for documents like wills and related estate documents, loan agreements, contracts, beneficiary change forms, and real estate documents.

If you are in need of forensic handwriting analysis by a court qualified document examiner, who understands the ins and outs of forgery detection to render opinions about the true author of a document or if a signature is forged or if there is evidence of digital manipulation, contact Forensic Forgery Detection (FFD) today.