Signatures

Researching family history is one of my hobbies. I have read that forty percent of Caucasians in the United States can trace their ancestry to Pennsylvania. I don't know how the writer of that article arrived at that figure, but the more I study genealogy the more I am inclined to believe it. Many of the Mennonite names in the nation today can be traced back to Lancaster County.
Last week I spent a day at the courthouse in Lancaster. That place is a virtual treasure chest of old documents dating back to the beginning of the county in 1729. One of the things I was looking for this time was the original German will of Peter Good, written in 1753. I had a copy of the English translation of the will but wanted to see the German one in order to compare Peter's signature with the one he wrote on the ship list when he immigrated in 1727. The German wills are kept in a balcony area over the will books in the Archives. The attendant brought it down for me and I immediately saw the signature, although not totally identical, was similar enough to believe it was written by the same hand.
Colonial German handwriting can be hard to decipher because the letters are not always written the same way they are written in English. Here are three signatures from the witnesses of Peter Good's will. (His two sons and a brother.) Can you read them?

Jacob Gut, Christian Gut, Peter Gutt

If I didn't know they were all farmers, I could believe they were doctors. I know some people today whose signatures bear little resemblance to their names---and they aren't doctors either. Will your descendants be able to read your signature 250 years from now?