Social history is all about placing our ancestors in a certain setting and understanding the influences around them that shaped their lives.
What better place to begin looking for items that identify those influences than right at home and exactly what might those items be?
Let’s set aside the obvious – any family history work done by a relative or professional researcher.
Here are some suggestions:
Bibles – While the Bible might or might not contain genealogical data, it definitely ties into religious inclinations. Is the Bible a King James version – thus protestant – or a Catholic Bible with the imprimatur of a church official? That the very least, it tells us that the family had some religious beliefs and that perhaps newspapers should be searched for church news.
Employment Mementos – Things like job awards, promotion announcements, family business records, workplace ID cards represent perhaps the most important part of our ancestors’ lives – how they made a living and supported families. Examples that I’ve found – my father-in-law’s ID that he wore daily, a news clipping announcing the closing of my grandparents’ meat market, and certificates of accomplishment for job-related duties.
Entertainment – When I lived on the East Coast, I was lucky enough to attend many Broadway shows growing up and I kept the Playbills to the shows I saw. I even kept my ticket to the Beatles concert at Shea Stadium – a show with the most expensive seats ever at $5.50! Those items certainly add to my social history.
Military Records – Military medals, service records and discharge papers and vintage photos tell us about time spent in the military. My grandfather’s cousin saved paper items such as a souvenir book, dinner menu and photos from his WWII service on Guam. My father-in-law had photos of his years in the Army Cavalry in the 1930s and I have my mother’s discharge papers from the WAVES at the close of WWII. My mom also saved quite a few photos of her with her other friends in the WAVES.
Newspaper Clippings – Yes, we can search many digitized newspapers online, but there are still MANY newspapers that haven’t been digitized. Your family might have saved clippings from those papers, which told of marriage parties, birthday celebrations, visits to and from others, illness and hospitalizations and business items. There is no better source to learn about social events than the local newspaper.
Passports – Unfortunately, passports are no longer stamped when entering a country. However, in the 20th century, just about any arrival in any country meant a stamp in the passport. My mom saved all her old passports and I’ve saved my family’s old passports, too. Not only is there a (maybe not so great) photo of the person, the passport makes it possible to identify every place he/she traveled and on exactly which date.
Post Office Mail – If you had a family member who was a “saver” like my Nana, more FAN club treasures can be found in letters, postcards, Christmas and other holiday cards. I am lucky enough to have original letters sent by my Rusyn cousins in Slovakia to my grandmother as early as the 1920s into the 1970s. My family loved to save old holiday cards and I have a couple that I signed as a little girl to my grandmother and a couple very very fancy and elaborate Valentine cards that my dad gave to his mother.
School Records – 20th century school records are numerous, anything from report cards to school plays to academic awards and photos. You might even own a yearbook that isn’t in an online collection. Which friends and teachers signed the yearbook? Schools are an automatic FAN club for everyone.
The collections described above are all records that were created elsewhere that came to be owned by our family members. However, there are several other items that our ancestors would have created “in-house” so to speak.
Books – Specialized items like baby books and wedding memories are hugely personal items that will include family details that would otherwise be lost to time. I have an address book that belonged to a cousin, started in the 1950s that includes addresses and phone numbers that are fun details to know. My sister-in-law has family recipe books that belonged to my mother-in-law, who was an excellent cook. Not usually found in a book, but items like Christmas card lists also tell us about the FAN club.
Diaries and journals – The closest thing I have to a dairy is a biographical sketch that is several pages long about my 2X great grandmother, Elida Ann (Hicks) Stewart. I do treasure that but I am very envious of those who have vintage diaries or journals kept by family members. Those are even more telling than news clippings when it comes to daily life.
Scrapbooks – Contents may vary a lot, with anything from news clippings, hobbies, school mementos, family photos and items like wedding invitations and funeral cards to be found in them.
If you have these items at home now, or have relatives who might own them, now is the time to seek them out. Otherwise, you might be as unlucky as a second cousin of mine. One of his aunts by marriage decided to help out after his grandmother died. She went through the closets and got rid of “all that old junk,” which included all the family photos, letters, etc! By the time anyone realized it was gone, the trash man had taken it away.