You've got mail!

On Saturday I received a package in the mail from Aunt Laurel. The package contained family history related papers which belonged to my late aunt.

Aunt Mamie was a "character". She outlived all of her husbands, ran a cafe for ten years at one point of her life, and was very active in one of the Minnesota chapters of the DAR. She used the info from one of her cousins to get into the lineage-based organization, but also did some of her research via mail and phone, and visits to various government agencies. This was the way things were done in the days before the internet.

I now have her DAR application copy, some of her research notes, and a letter written to her on 9-11-1976. It turns out that the cousin who wrote her is one of the same cousins that I found online earlier this year. Small world, hmm?

Naturally I asked her if she wanted a PDF of the letter, as it was a real blast from the past.  She said yes, hoping that it was grammatically correct, and I sent the scanned PDF to her.

We have come a long way in communication technology. We are no longer restricted by snail mail and landlines in this age of email and cell phones. If we need to make onsite copies of documents, there are photocopiers, handheld scanners and cellphone cameras, depending on our needs and available equipment. It is, however, still nice to have that personal communication to bridge the gap between original records and direct knowledge of individuals connected to those records. Records only tell part of the family history.