Excerpt of the Civil War Diary of Arminius Bill via the Connecticut Digital Archive.
Dear Diary: Help Me Discover My Ancestors!
People have used diaries of ancestors and their journals for centuries to record their lives and organize their thoughts. They come in many forms, such as research journals, travel logs, and straightforward accounts of everyday life. These sources cannot be overlooked in genealogical research, and the information that can be mined from them can enhance your understanding of your ancestors' lives and maybe even break down a brick wall.
What Can Diaries Tell Me About My Ancestors?
If you are lucky, you may find a detailed daily diary written by your ancestor, which gives insights into their thoughts and motivations. Traditional genealogical sources typically do not contain this rich information. If you are not so lucky, don't despair; the diaries of relatives, friends, and associates can still provide extensive details about your family. Diaries and journals can enhance genealogical research in the following ways:
- Provide vital information such as birth, marriage, and death dates that other sources may not capture.
- Put a person in a place and time. This can help in creating timelines to solve challenging problems.
- Reveal relationships and associations previously unknown.
- Give insight into their motivations for things like moves and other significant life changes.
Finding the Diaries of Your Ancestors
You can take several approaches to discover if any of your ancestors left behind a diary.
Talk to Family Members
Often, some of the most valuable family heirlooms and documents are in a relative's attic. Family reunions are a great time to speak with relatives and learn if they have any diaries and journals. If they are not ready to pass the diary on, offer to scan the pages so that they can be shared widely with other family members while keeping the original safe.
Contact Relatives Online
Genealogy websites such as MyHeritage, FamilySearch, and Ancestry can create public family trees for sharing. You can find others researching the same ancestors who may have inherited different family artifacts. When approaching these relatives about sharing access, explaining how you are related and the research you have done on the family is helpful. Offer to exchange information and images of artifacts and documents you possess.
Local Historical or Genealogical Society and Libraries
These smaller institutions are focused on preserving the history and stories of the local community. It is best to contact the local public library and search for the town. Area Facebook groups can also have a lot of information that could connect you to artifacts such as diaries of your ancestors.
Digital Collections
Libraries, archives, and museums frequently digitize their collections to make them readably available to the public. These objects can come to them in a variety of ways, and they usually have family records, including photographs and diaries. The website Digital Public Libraries of America enables users to search various digital collections in one place. Just type in keywords such as the family name and location to see if anything is available. If you are researching in Europe, the website Europeana is an excellent resource for locating digitized objects. Another easy way to find these collections is to search the term “Digital Collections” followed by the area where your ancestors lived in any search engine. You can also search by their surname to see if there are any results.
What if You Can't Find Diaries Written by Your Ancestors?
Even if you cannot find diaries written by your ancestors, a wealth of information can be learned from these sources. One of the most important is learning more about the social and historical context in which your ancestors lived. This gives you insight into their experiences and could provide clues about why they decided to do things like move, change religion, or occupation.
Friends, Associates, and Neighbors
Researching our ancestors' friends, associates, and neighbors can uncover information about our own families. The accounts written by these people may reference our ancestors. They could also give you more information about what was happening in the local community.
Journals of Local Religious Leaders
Various religious leaders across many denominations would keep journals or diaries of their daily work and religious functions.
For example, circuit-riding Methodist ministers would keep records of the couples they married in their journals before sending copies to the church.While many of these records have been transcribed from other sources, the original diary can have additional details about the minister’s life, travels, and other people he encountered along the way.
This diary entry written by Henry Matthews on 11 November 1819 detailed a marriage that he witnessed performed by Mr. Goff. He noted that he also spoke to the attendees and reported the scripture that he read.
Town Founders and Political Figures
Did your ancestors settle in a new area? Were they involved in local politics? Consider searching for diaries of others who were involved. These can sometimes name residents in an area and bring to light the day's issues. They could also mention local churches, stores, and industries. Occasionally, they can mention where other earlier settlers lived before migration.
Military Service Members
Did your ancestors serve in any military conflicts? Maybe they did not keep a diary, but it's possible others in their organization or unit did. For example, the Library of Congress collects World War I diaries.
If you know the names of the conflicts and battles your ancestors served in, you can read first-hand accounts of others with them. The diary of Arminius Bill, a Union Army doctor, contains not only accounts of his work but also drawings and descriptions of the battles, troop movements, and other happenings during significant conflicts, such as the battle at Fredericksburg.
Occupational Diaries and Journals
Many professionals, such as doctors, teachers, and clerks, kept journals that would document their professional and personal lives. While these diaries may not be by or about your ancestors, they can give you insights into what a day at work looked like.
The transcription of the diary of Susan Brown, a textile mill worker in Lowell, Massachusetts, not only contains her thoughts and experiences of working in the mill but also shares the experiences of her coworkers and managers.
Conclusion
Be creative and determined in your search for diaries. Hopefully, you will get lucky and discover an account written by one of your ancestors. If not, learning more about their associates, community, religious, and professional lives can give you insights into their experiences.
If you need have a question about your ancestor's diary or journal and how to use it in your genealogy research, schedule a consultation with one of our professional genealogists here.
Smashing article. I agree such sources are often overlooked, as well as family recipes and books of receipts.
Hi, Helen! Thanks so much! And, we agree–family recipes and receipts records are very useful research documents. Thanks for reading and joining the conversation!