Correspondence

Snail mail genealogy research is still an important first step in doing a family tree. I do most of my research online these days, either at web sites or by email. But when I first started doing genealogy, the data I needed was too recent to find online. I needed birth, death, and marriage certificates, wills, and deeds, etc. The records were protected by privacy laws and couldn't simply be viewed online. So I learned to send out one or two research queries with envelopes and stamps almost every day. It was ultimately very rewarding when the replies began to roll in, so I kept the letters going out because it was so painful to have to deal with an empty mailbox as I waited and waited for my answers to come with the postman.

When email entered the picture for me around 1994, I tried printing them all out and three-hole punching them for binding. I soon realized that was insanity. The trick was to save keystrokes, so I copied and pasted the emails directly into my genealogy software's notes section. My family tree soon became a repository for all of my genealogy research correspondence. Eventually, as I learned how to post my data online at Rootsweb WorldConnect, I found I could share that correspondence with fellow researchers. I occasionally have to remove all or part of an email because the query includes personal commentary about the family member who always shunned his brother or hated his Aunt Mabel, etc, etc. While I might clip a personal remark here and there, I tended to preserve the quality of the writing itself, which I considered an indicator of reliability. Sloppy spelling or grammar might tell us all something about the correspondent: do you think cousin Flo can accurately transcribe all those dates and places of birth and death when she can't spell geneology or cematery or calvary?

So now my database is chock full of mail I've received over the past fourteen years, as well as data sourced from countless books, census records, etc. And it is all available for view online. I keep a Private file for the original copies of emails that people have asked me to remove from the Internet. I use a simple numbering code to indicate where the original might be found in the Private file, and the Private file listing indicates where the original email is mentioned in the database.

At some point, the Ancestry people will have to consider selling a service that provides for the legacy of digital databases after the death of the owner. I'm sure my wife isn't going to want to resolve the many little details of my genealogy hobby when I die. There's a market in this, Ancestry. Mark my words.