March – In Her Own Words – Lives of Women – Diane Richard
We love to explore the lives of our ancestors. Documenting our female ancestors can often prove more challenging. They are less likely to appear in many of the public records created at the time – land, estate, court, tax records, and more. One great resource to learn more about our overshadowed female ancestors is via their own words. Personally written diaries, journals, correspondence, and more as found in private collections a.k.a. manuscript collections at many archives and library collections, are priceless.
Until recently with the advent of Archivegrid and online digitized finding aids, it had been challenging to Identify and locate these types of materials. These personally written records are now more accessible than ever to us. Let’s explore how are you identify and access these materials as relevant to your research. We’ll explore the lives of a few southern women through the personally written documents which they created and which survive.
These women provide unique perspectives on not only their lives and on those women living in their community.