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Sunday, October 30, 2011

Letters, a thing of the past?

Today I discovered that letters written by my fourth great grandparents between 1881 and 1885 had been published by a local Historical Society. It was so exciting to read these. They weren’t very long, but they were interesting and provided a view of their life.

Will our great great grandchildren be able to find such things. How long has it been since I wrote a letter? Since 2006, I wrote letters to my daughter when she was in boot camp. Everything else is in emails or on Facebook. What will there be for our descents to find?

Thinking about this, maybe I should get in a habit of printing out emails and postings to document events and such.

3 comments:

  1. Not only is letter writing becoming a thing of the past but being able to read those letters may also be at risk as students in school are no longer taught cursive handwriting since everything is on the computer

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  2. Yes, printing your emails and tucking them in a safe place is a good idea. It's not just that people don't write letters anymore--those letters that are written are often discarded.

    What a wonderful find that was--to discover that series of letters from your fourth great grandparents! I've seen such letters in books and I always was jealous...until an older relative sent us a stash of war-time letters home from my husband's father! What a treasure. I'm transcribing them and posting them on my blog, as well as scanning them. I want to get them "out there" in as many ways as possible...thinking about those in the future who would love to make those same types of discoveries we have loved to find.

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  3. I print out e-mails I think are important, so that is a good idea. What a wonderful discovery you made finding letters that far back.

    Welcome to GeneaBloggers and I look forward to reading your blog.

    http://www.sugarhillharlemny.blogspot.com

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