Ancestry Magazine

A diary, letter, journal, and anything else penned at the time of an event can transform our genealogical databases of dry dates and names into a living ancestral legacy.

Camp Barnes
Jan 2, 1862

My Dear Wife

We are all well and I wish you a Happy new year and now I recolect [sic] that last year at this time I was in Providence. Now I am in Virginia. Where shall I be next January. Perhaps at Home.

Thus begins one of many letters written by my great-great-grandfather Captain Joseph Collingwood of the 18th Massachusetts Regiment, to his wife, Rebecca, in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

From our perspective 140 years later, we can look ba ck to “next January” and answer his question. On 7 January 1863, the Boston Herald printed an account of the Battle of Fredericksburg and listed “Capt. Joseph W. Collingwood, Co. H, wounded and died Dec. 24th.” Joseph’s contemplation of his future had been resolved in a manner far too familiar to families with loved ones who served in the Civil War.

Over a two-year period, Collingwood wrote home every few days with accounts of his daily activities, personal opinions, and thoughts of home. Our family is fortunate to have more than 300 of these letters written by Joseph after he left for battle, as well as letters written by his wife and children. Through the years, their thoughtful descendents chose to save this rewarding and diverse collection. It is a precious part of our family’s heritage.

The Collingwood letters were uncovered by my mother’s cousin in his parents’ attic. It is typical of where and how many people discover their family mementos. As much as I would love to own these letters myself, or have them readily available to use, they have been wisely and safely archived within the collections of the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. There they can be reviewed by other family members, studied by Civil War scholars, and appreciated by anyone who wishes to learn about the time period or circumstances through a contemporary account.

Few things give genealogists better insights into the lives of their ancestors than words written by their ancestors or by those sharing a similar history. Whether it be a community, a home, an historic event, or a social niche, personal contemporary accounts give us the best perspective of what life was really like for them. A diary, letter, journal, and anything else penned at the time of an event can transform our genealogical databases of dry dates and names into a living ancestral legacy.

Using Letters and Journals
Even if your ancestors never wrote a single word that s urvived the years, it does not mean their life isn’t recorded somewhere. Circumstances similar to theirs may be available in a personal account written by another. If you can find a relationship, either through bloodlines or common bonds, you’ll discover a way to understand and add depth to your family’s history. Look for similarities in lifestyle, social status, profession, or neighborhood. All of these can give you a good sense of how your ancestors lived.

But don’t just take their word for it. Because some writers limit their accounts to weather, business transactions, grand events, or the trivial, you may often get the impression that life was dull and the writer did little. It is exciting to find the exception, when someone takes the time and has the skill and imagination to detail routines, observe social patterns, record community events, and offer opinions on everything from religion and politics to the busybody down the street.

I purchased a diary on eBay whose author was no relation to me, but she lived in a town near and similar to a woman in my family’s past. I had never heard of the woman, nor was I familiar with her surname, but I was hopeful that she would include the names of others who had a connection to my family. I found only a few common threads, but I had a great time doing a bit of research to learn more about the author of the diary. I was then able to relate what I’d found in primary and secondary sources to her entries. Once I learned a little more about Mary Folsom’s background, it was fun to read her words and match her birth and anniversary dates to the comments she recorded on the matching dates in 1872.

Some of the earliest diaries available for genealogists to read and interpret were written by educated men, mostly clergy and scholars. Merchant, mariner, and military journals become more prolific late in the eighteenth century. And while accounts by women are available in Colonial America, they proliferate in the nineteenth century when voy ages and trips and their attendant travel diaries became more common, plus social and educational improvements made it more acceptable for women to place their thoughts on diary pages. Westward migrations challenged men and women alike to record their journeys.

Locating Letters and Journals
There are many places to find these writings. Historical societies and special collections within libraries are readily obvious. Two of my favorite places to find personal accounts are in locations as diverse as academic libraries and within scholarly journals.

Academic libraries are a resource regularly overlooked by family historians. Yet many families and individuals leave their papers and records to those institutions, whether it be an alma mater, an organization in the community, or a repository that specializes in the types of collections into which their family records fit. You may want to browse college or university collections for surnames and locations pertinent to your research.

Diaries, journals, and personal manuscripts are often transcribed and published within genealogical periodicals, most particularly within the more scholarly journals like the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, the NGS Quarterly, the American Genealogist, and others. They all have distinct indexes, yet a search in PERSI can result in many more choices.

One of the most exciting and rapidly growing “repositories” of family papers is the Internet. The Library of Congress, historical societies around the country, and individuals are placing digital images and transcriptions of personal accounts online. Searching within community databases on RootsWeb, or within a particular library catalog using “diary,” “journal,” “letters,” or “family papers,” coupled with a surname or place name can often yield positive results. (Hint: When searching Google or another search engine, don’t use the term “journal” as it will often bring you to a community’s newspaper website.)

The number of diaries, journals, and letters available online is staggering. Many people have taken the time to transcribe family texts to share with the world. Be mindful of spelling differences. In searching for Collingwood references online, I found a diary penned in California that mentioned my Civil War ancestor’s brother George. But I nearly missed this valuable connection because the diary was properly transcribed and the original author, using the flexible spelling of the day, wrote Collingwood with only one “l.”

Also, be sure to look in catalogs related to places your ancestors lived—and remember to think collaterally! Those family papers that originated in Maine may have gone to a cousin, then passed on to a niece, who then left them to her favorite library in Des Moines.

William Matthews’ American Diaries, an annotated bibliography of American diaries written prior to 1861, is one of many such indexes written by Matthews and continued by others. They offer remarkably detailed accounts of catalogued diaries and journals and where to find them. I find it fun to simply read through the descriptions, even when they have no connection with my family. A similarly valuable online index is the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC), operated by the Library of Congress at <www.loc.gov/coll/nucmc/nucmc.html>. In it you’ll discover a host of personal treasures archived around the country.

Sometimes you can search online hoping to find a catalog entry or simple reference, and come across a digitized image of a journal, preserved in part or as a whole in a website’s collection of digital resources. These are often accompanied by transcriptions of the same. If diaries intrigue you, you’ll want to visit the Library of Congress American Memory Project at <http://memory.loc.gov>. Here you’ll discover a fabulous array of digitized diaries and journals, complete with tran scriptions. The interest in placing digital images on websites has grown enormously in the past year or two. It is no longer rare to find resources online that you would have previously had to travel around the country to view in person.

The Film Study Center at Harvard University developed and maintains a website that offers valuable training for anyone wanting to understand more about using diaries for historical purposes. It uses A Midwife’s Tale, The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary 1785-1812 by Laurel Thatcher as its focus. Each page of the diary is online and the viewer is given the option of seeing the original handwriting or reading the transcribed text. If you find early American handwriting difficult to decipher, the DoHistory website at <www.dohistory.com> also gives you a chance to try your hand at transcribing Martha Ballard’s handwriting.

For Posterity
A large number of diaries, journals, and letters are still in private hands. If you are fortunate enough to own a diary, journal, or collection of letters written by an ancestor, carefully preserve it for your descendants and others. Some of the greatest assets diary owners can give the genealogical community are transcriptions of diaries. It is also important to be sure originals are preserved and stored properly to save them from disintegration.

The Society of American Archivists has an online publication called “A Guide to Donating Your Personal or Family Papers to a Repository.” Visit its website at <http://archivists.org>, click on “Resources,” then “free online resources.” As the text on the website so aptly states, “When you donate your personal or family papers to a manuscript repository, your family history becomes a part of your community’s collective memory.”

Laura G. Prescott is the membership campaign director for the New England Historic Genealogical Society.