Birthday Books and Other Personal Papers

The first anniversary of the blog is rapidly approaching – happy birthday, dear Blog – which led me to muse on Birthday Books and other personal papers.

If you’re lucky enough to inherit any personal papers, these can be a wonderful source of useful information for your family tree.  However, they can also be very misleading. 

I am from a generation when any adult friend of my parents was known to me as ‘Auntie’ or ‘Uncle’ – and when such an honorific appears in a letter, diary etc, it can be very easy to presume that the person is a relation.

Be aware as well that people mentioned  in personal papers are often referred to by nicknames.  I’ve mentioned before that ‘Jack’ may in fact be ‘John’ (and in my area of the Black Country ‘Job’ may be a name in its own right, or be a nickname for ‘John’).  My great aunt was christened Violet Emily, but was known thoughout her life as ‘Pat’ – my grandmother was christened ‘Annie’ but always called ‘Nancy’. Great Uncle Bert was in fact ‘Herbert’:  Uncle Bert was no relation at all, and his christian name was  Horace – his wife (known to me all her life as Auntie May) was again no relation whatsoever and her name was Doris.

Personal papers can be a wonderful resource for the family or local historian:  but they need to be approached with caution.  Like any other source, the information they contain should be confirmed from another source.

Careful and accurate research should always conform to the Genealogical Standard of Proof – of which more next week.

In the meantime, the blog and I will consider how to best celebrate its birthday.

 

About kate

Experienced genealogist but virgin blogger...
This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*