Are you lucky enough to have inherited letters or postcards written to or from a female ancestor? We are not all that lucky, but if you are, now's the time to digitize, transcribe, and analyze them.
Digitizing letters helps to preserve them for the future. Transcribing makes it easier to read for you and other family members. Analyzing and considering them in the context of social history helps to better understand what is written.
Questions to ask and write about as you study her correspondence:
- What genealogically relevant information is mentioned? (birth, marriage, or death dates, for example)
- What date/s are listed? (Consider creating a timeline)
- What details about her life can be ascertained from the letter?
- What records (if any) can be found that support the information found in the letter? (city directories, newspapers, etc.)
- What is going on during this historical time period or in the life of her family?
- What information needs to be explained so that today's family members understand? (For example, abbreviations, names, or historical context.)
So what if you're like me and haven't inherited correspondence? This need not be correspondence from the 1800s. It could be your mother's letters or even yours. Recently, some letters I wrote 30 years ago were found in a box in our garage. One included the details of my maternal grandmother's funeral. I'm going to use this to add information to my genealogy software.
Resources
Legacy Webinars - How to Analyze an Envelope for Genealogical Clues https://news.legacyfamilytree.com/legacy_news/2023/02/analyzing-an-envelope.html
Legacy Webinars - How to Analyze a Letter for Genealogical Clues https://news.legacyfamilytree.com/legacy_news/2023/02/how-to-analyze-a-letter-for-genealogical-clues.html
Philatelic Genealogy
http://philgen.org/
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