FLHIG
 

Family and Local History
Indexing Group

Selected articles from the Newsletter

This article first appeared in SIGGNL 23  pages 14 to 17 (February/March 2000)

Transcribing manuscript diaries and journals
by A G Charlesworth

I suppose that, as with most people who at some time may walk through a graveyard, my mind tends to turn upon the occupants therein and to speculate as to what their lives might have amounted to. Would it not have been much more than the brief inscription in their memory might have suggested, and one suspects that there is probably a good story buried along with most of them.

It is this sort of curiosity within the context of family and local history, that fuels an interest in manuscript journals and perhaps ultimately goes some small way towards redressing the situation. I think it was H.G. Wells who suggested that the message from the graveyard was "remember me".

My own first experience of this was when we were sorting out the effects of my deceased father in law, amongst which, much to our surprise, we found such a work. It had been written by my wife's grandfather, a man about whom we knew very little and who had been up to then just a name and a date of death to us. It commenced with his childhood memories of the 1860's and moved forward to a failing marriage which eventually led to him leaving these shores to work in his uncle's chandlery business in Antwerp. From there, following the death of his uncle, he moved on to the USA, where he lived and worked for about four years. He eventually returned to England and resumed life with his errant wife. After many moves around the country he eventually settled in the Manchester area where he died in 1916.

He was a religious man, and although he appeared to have been more the innocent party in the matter, one has a sense of a feeling of guilt or failure on his part.It is unfortunate that some pages bearing upon the reasons for him going abroad had been torn out and destroyed (probably by his son) and so we will never know the real truth. However even with these deletions the information gained about him and of my wife's family was invaluable and would not have been available from any other source. It gave the author a personality and a history and provided the starting point of the family tree or that branch of it.

I mention the above only to emphasize how important it is that at least the contents of such legitimately acquired documents be made available to currently alive family members (assuming they are interested). However, one does not have to be a relation in order to gain pleasure and satisfaction from researching such works. It can be a unique experience to have been instrumental in reconnecting people with their antecedents and of course the process can be of great interest.

Along the way I have had a great deal of welcome assistance from complete strangers and one feels an obligation to reciprocate on behalf of others who may be in a similar position. It is at this point that an index of personal news items culled from the 19th century press (originally started for my own convenience) has blossomed into something that could be of use to others.

I am aware that some of the manuscripts that I have acquired have been preceded or succeeded by related volumes which are probably held by others in the same position as myself. That is having only half of the story and knowing that the rest exists somewhere else. There does not appear to be any means by which such privately owned documents are recorded and it is difficult to see how a register could be practicable even if the subjects could be located and identified anyway. There is already an excellent CD-ROM issued by Hanover Press, Aldeburgh, Suffolk, covering journals and diaries that have been published in book form, but this cannot extend to privately owned unpublished works. One possible solution would be for the information to be sought and somehow included in works like the Genealogical Research Directory in the way that they now deal with "subject entries". Alternatively the Guild of One Name Studies may consider that it would be a service to their members to include such information in their published register.

It must be said that if problem solving is your métier then journals are the thing for you. Constructing a family tree backwards has advantages as well as disadvantages. Your investigations are not so much directed towards the person but equally towards the history of his time, of his life style and of trying to pick up clues from chance observations that he might have made. A journal or a diary can be a very personal document, and one which was often kept under lock and key. It is therefore quite likely that you will not have chapter and verse as to name, address, dates of birth etc. handed to you on a plate. You will probably have, in the first instance, to deduce much of this from chance comments passed in the work itself. Indeed a significant number are anonymous and these can present problems that could delay you for months.

I would recommend that the first step to take is to make a transcription of the whole journal and put it on to computer disk. It can be time consuming but it will be well worth the effort, particularly if you are working on a document that is faded, fragile or written in a very poor hand. Cross writing can be another complication. You will find that you tend always to be referring back to the original and that this can be difficult if you are dealing with something which is not easy to read. You will almost certainly find that a printed transcription can open doors for you when you eventually arrive at the present day and are looking for help and advice. Most museum curators and archivists can be incredibly helpful if you take the trouble to make your question interesting and perhaps print out a couple of the relevant pages in support of your letter. It all helps.

Make a checklist of all the sources of record that are available to you and check these first as a routine before moving on to things that are likely to cost you money. Unlike your own family tree you will probably directing your attention to places far from your home base and this will probably involve you in additional cost. So don't overlook the records that are to hand and probably cost free.

If your local record office has the probate calendars and if your subjects name is not in the Smith Jones Brown category it is worthwhile to spend a day extracting every mention of that name. Most executors tend to be relatives and with a little luck it is not difficult to work your way back from father to son, father to son towards the present day.

Don't overlook the British Library Catalogue. If your subject has been able to write an interesting and literate journal it is quite possible that he has tried his hand writing and publishing some other work; perhaps a novel, travel book or even a biography and most books carry small biographical accounts of their authors.

A good 19th Century Dictionary (usually 3 or 4 volumes) is a very wise investment and you should be able to pick one up in most good second hand bookshops without having to break the bank. You may be surprised at the extent to which the use of language has changed. Trades and professions, abbreviations, materials, and matters relating to obsolete practices and articles etc. which may not be dealt with in the modern desk dictionary.

I am sure that most of the members of the society are better qualified genealogically than myself so I hope that I do not sound patronising. However I did find that inverting the normal approach to research required a different and more imaginative approach on my part.

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