Hello -

I am researching a McFall family from Anderson, Anderson County, South Carolina, with some who moved to Danville, Virginia (brothers who were both druggists - pharmacists - who each established drug stores in Danville - stores operated in the late 1800s into the 1950s, at least.) The McFall family line is a "married-in" line to a another distant family line of mine. So, I don't have much knowledge of them, right now.

However, I read your post about the "c" in "McFall" being handwritten with the "c" elevated and underlined and thought I should reply. In case you don't already know by now, that way of writing any "Mc" surname was rather common at one time. It was a penmanship style and doesn't reflect anything about where the particular family line came from. In "Mc" surnames, writing the "c" as elevated, with one or 2 strokes (underlining) below it, indicated that it was a lower case "c" with the preceding and following letters in the surname being capitalized, as in "McFall" and not "Mcfall."

I have been trying to find some reputable online source to which to refer you about this script style, but so far, I haven't found anything. I'm a librarian by training and one of the topics covered (a million years ago) in library science training was called "librarian hand" - that old-style penmanship format librarians used for handwritten library catalog cards (if you have ever seen images of any of those - or seen the actual old handwritten library catalog cards.) When I was learning about "librarian hand," that is when I learned about the elevated "c", with underscoring, in "Mc" surnames. Perhaps at your local public library, one of the librarians can help you find a book with good images of older forms of penmanship - Copperplate, Spencerian, and Palmer - which may have examples of how a "Mc" surname was written, if you are curious.