I had a similar problem trying to scan some old letters my mother had written
from France in 1918. They were written on poor quality paper, sometimes in pen,
sometimes in ink, and sometimes in both, on both sides of the paper. A black
backing does help, but even then with these letters, and often also with old
newspaper advertisements, it is quite impossible to eliminate the bleed through
by the method CSM1 suggests without also effectively eliminating the content.
I did some experiments with scanning both sides of the document and then
subtracting the scan of the back from that of the front. This is decidedly
fiddly -- especially in getting the two sides to line up -- but it can give a
significant improvement. I have written some technical notes on the subject
which you can see at
http://www.corybas.com/Technical/Experimental.htm.
I have since seen how I think this process could be significantly improved, but
I have not had time to test my ideas.
James McNangle