13 March 2019

THINGS THAT CAN BE USEFUL TO GENEALOGY THAT ARE NOT EXACTLY DOCUMENTS

The following list of things that can be useful are not exactly genealogy documents though they can be found in archives, attics, and shoe boxes in closets.

1) Family Bible.  Inscriptions in handwriting of births and deaths in the family helpful to locating other documents or verifying oral histories.  Helpful also if  person who did handwriting can be verified. Be aware in the past PENMANSHIP was key, not handwriting.  What's the difference?  Penmanship emphasized neatness, readability, and conformity of lettering and slant, often practiced.  It wasn't as individualistic as handwriting.

2) Report Cards.  Can verify schools and imply person's age and location.  (But a private boarding school would attract students from many places, so affordability is implied.) 

3) Funeral Home Prayer Cards:  Helps verify age, date of birth and death, implies religion of person or family,  may mention funeral home name, church, or cemetery; just be aware that like business cards people can pay to have anything printed.

4) Diplomas and certificates of classes and education.  (Caution due to ease of printing or calligraphic.)

5)  Letters:  Oh how we love to read old letters, note the stamps (how inexpensive postage was), wax seals, choice of stationary, handwriting, and so on. All this now replaced by texting, email, chats, social networking. You may already know what is expressed but save them for future generations. Be aware that person writing may not be honest or simply be ignorant or wrong.  (A letter sent to me by an old relative got me started on a line of genealogy and proved to have both wonderful leads and horrible errors.)  Identify the writer and who they were to the receiver.

6) Newspaper articles.  It helps if they actually spelled the names right.  If the surnames are common, be sure the people mentioned in the article are the family you're trying to locate.

7) Town Books.  Something like a yearbook with photos and stories, usually printed with contributions and with local pride.  (One provided black and white photos of a client's grandparents and great-grandparents never seen before.)  Surprisingly found at times in big city library collections far away from origins.  Just judge that pride may have resulted in the printing of some untruths, which makes them a lot like yearbooks.)

8) Yearbooks:  How do you really know someone graduated just because they showed up for the yearbook picture in their junior year?  (Some of us wish we had not shown up, since the copyright of yearbooks is rarely renewed and yearbooks have become exploited by certain web sites. I cringe.) I caught hell from someone because I found their yearbook photo on Ancestry genealogy database and that implied their age.  The person actually had been in a hospital for polio and lost 2 years of school and was 20 when they graduated.)

9) Shower and Wedding invitations are also helpful but don't prove the wedding took place or was legal.

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