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How to Examine Old Documents Such as Letters and Diaries

Letters and diaries are primary sources that come straight from the heart. They offer valuable, exciting (and occasionally challenging) opportunities to see directly into the past. Every historical manuscript is unique. But whether you've got a letter, diary, or other handwritten item, the main questions are the same: Who wrote it? When? Where? Why?

 

Getting Started

When our detectives come face to face with an old diary or letter, they:

  • Inspect its surface, handwriting, and surrounding objects for dates, signatures, and symbols of authenticity.
  • Examine it for missing pages or signs that someone has tampered with the manuscript.
  • Analyze and read between the lines. What motivated the writer? Is there a meaning behind the words that can be found?

 

Watch Our History Detectives at Work

 

Clara Barton Letter

History Detective Eduardo Pagan meets an expert to evaluate whether a signature on a letter is authentic.

 

Spybook

History detective Gwendolyn Wright examines an old notebook to determine whether it is really a spy’s notebook.

 

Do It Yourself Investigation

You too can uncover the hidden story beneath a personal artifact from the past. Just follow these three steps to get started.

 

Step One: Select a manuscript from one of the following categories:

Family: Choose a letter or diary that you’re itching to find out more about. Take a trip to your attic or ask your parents or grandparents if they can help you track down some family papers. You can even search online for family manuscripts with help from sites such as ancestry.com.

Community: Visit your local or school library and thumb through the archives to find a letter or diary written by a local community leader, historical figure, or school children.

American History: You don't have to own an original document to conduct a manuscript investigation. The Internet has brought thousands of manuscripts within your reach. Pinpoint a subject or topic that interests you, then select a letter and diary written during that particular period of history. For example, the following sites offer extensive libraries of historical letters and diaries:

Abraham Lincoln's Papers
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award98/nbhihtml/pshome.html

Civil War Diaries
http://www.homepages.dsu.edu/JANKEJ/CIVILWAR/diaries.html

Primary documents from the American South, including ex-slave narratives
http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/

World War II internment letters from Japanese American children to librarian Clara Breed
http://www.janm.org/collections/clara-breed-collection/

Prairie Settlement 
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award98/nbhihtml/pshome.html

Women’s historical diaries
http://www.aisling.net/journaling/old-diaries-online.htm

 

Step Two: Inspect and analyze your document in the following ways:

  • Inspect its surface, handwriting, and surrounding objects for dates, signatures, and symbols of authenticity.
  • Examine it for missing pages or signs that someone has tampered with the manuscript.
  • Analyze and read between the lines. What motivated the writer? Who are the other people mentioned here? Is there a meaning behind the words that can be found?

 

Step Three: Dig Deeper

  • Seek out primary sources such as photos, land records, newspaper articles, or other documents by or about the same writer at the American Memory Collection, the Library of Congress’s digitized collection of written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience.
  • Find out the historical context surrounding the document. What story about that historical point in time does this document tell you? The DMarie Time Capsulecan help you start making connections for events in history between 1800 and 2002.
  • Consult an archivist or historian to discuss document dating, historical, or monetary value.

 

Step Four: Present Your Findings

Here are some innovative ways to share your discoveries with your peers and the world at large.

Create an MSI (Mansucript Scene Investigation)
Scan and upload your document to Annotate. Then annotate it with your detective notes and conclusions, and share it with the world using. You can invite people to view it and share their impressions with you online.

Submit to a Digital Archive
Publish your manuscript online and have it be accessible by other researchers using a site such as Internet Archive or Google Sites.

 

Now, it’s your turn. Print and use our handy checklist for evaluating written items to help you. Ready, Set, Go!...

 

PS: Some Parting Tips from the History Detective Experts

  • If you're having trouble reading a manuscript, focus on individual letters in words you know, and compare with indecipherable letters.
  • Look up unfamiliar words in the Oxford English Dictionary, which includes archaic and obscure words that you might find in manuscripts.
  • When a document seems difficult to understand, leave it alone for a while. Let your mind work on problems while you do something else.
  • If writing seems "wrong," ask someone with no pre-conceived notions to look at the manuscript. Fresh eyes can see more clearly. 

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