Question of the Week: Have you found any diaries from your ancestors? (Sept 2022) [closed]

Question

Have you found any diaries or journals written by your ancestors?

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Comments

No diaries yet. I am living in my great grandparents home archiving all the letters and pictures and artifacts that remain of their lives. They never threw any letters out. We didn't know this trove existed until my great uncle died almost 2 years ago. He didn't open a box or a drawer that didn't have his stuff in it so everything is fairly well preserved. Some of the letters belonged to my 3rd great grandparents and are from the 1850s. This has been a joy to me as a lifelong family historian. I've started a blog to keep the heirs informed about what I find. I'm not an heir so the cousins have been very generous. I slacked off this summer and planted a vegetable garden. I wrote biographies on some of the people who wrote the letters, and hiked and picnicked through dozens of graveyards. I've busted a few myths and brick walls. Wikitree Thons have really helped me hone some skills and get out of my bubble. The SourceAthon has me raring to open some more boxes and get back to 'sourcing' these lives I am living among. I only have 7 more months on this grand adventure. So, no diary, but the house and it's contents are a daily journey into the lives of ordinary people who give us an extraordinary  glimpse from the past. It's our desire that the local history museum take this so everything is being digitized and transcribed and properly archived, by me. Everything will either be donated or sold in the Spring. Sometimes I get caught up in the mechanics of my task and I forget to delight in it all. I sorted the letters by year so I have the most complete record I could imagine. There are tens of thousands of them. Sitting in the morning with a handful of letters and a cup of coffee at my great grandmother's kitchen table is the honor of a lifetime.

Answer 1

Yes! I have the 1866 diary kept by my great grandfather William Klinefelter, the year after he served in the union army in the Civil War. He lived on a farm in Ohio, and speaks about that, his teaching, his family, the farm, debates, and courting my great grandmother, Ellen Holl.

I also have a wonderful, several page letter written by his daughter - my father's mother - of her ocean voyage to the Philipines in 1912.

Answer 2

My grandmother requested that her sons burn her diaries, as she did not want anyone to find them on the dump and read about themselves or neighbors (or family).  So sad because she was conscious of ancestors and made sure that my parents knew who they were and where they were buried.

Answer 3

Diary of William Ransom 1819-1848

journal of Elizabeth Ransom 1849-1871

The Ransom and Latimer families1819-1946

Sketch ofCol. William Ransom and Ransom family 1956

Answer 4

I have my mother's diary/journal and her younger sister's my aunt. The diaries were written in the early 1940's and tell life on the farm. When my aunt didn't want her mother or sister to read what she'd written she used shorthand. Mary Lou Gravatt

Answer 5

I have a journal kept by my great grandmother covering the time period from Oct. 15, 1916 and ends upon the death of her husband in 1924.  He worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad and they travelled a lot by train.

I also have a journal kept by her son, my grandfather during WWI.  It is written in a ships log book from a German ocean liner that was captured during the war.  My grandfather was in the Navy and made many trips across the Atlantic to France, so there are mementos of his time on leave in France.

Answer 6

I do have a few diaries that belonged to my great aunt.  They start around 1900.  Millicent Milroy who supposedly married Edward VIII, Duke of Windsor.  I'm not a believer but many individuals are.  Google will provide additional information if interested.

Answer 7

I have a hand written diary of my paternal grandmother's great uncle who was a wagon maker in Southern Ontario in the late 1800's/early 1900's. His name was Lambert Alcock.

Answer 8

Not only do I have the diary of my paternal grandmother's great uncle Lambert Alcock, I also have letters to my paternal grandmother sent to her from her mother while travelling from Saskatchewan by car to Southwestern Ontario to visit her parents in 1927. I have letters my paternal grandfather sent to my grandmother in the early 1940's while he was travelling in the 1940's in Niagara looking for a place to establish his stock brokerage office. I have letters my father sent to his mother during WWII while he served in RCAF.

Answer 9

My great-great grandmother, Rowena Frances (Chittenden) Pearson (Chittenden-724) wrote her life story and wartime experiences, responding to a request for such things by the Raleigh (NC) News & Observer newspaper around 1910. Thirty handwritten pages condenses to about eight when typed up. I donated it to the Southern Historical Collection of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and have posted a transcription on her wikitree page. A cousin found it in the SHC about a year ago and contacted me; we've had a rich exchange of stories and info since then.

Answer 10

The diaries of Robert and James McAfee from the 1773 exploration of Kentucky were published in the Woods- McAfee Memorial published in 1905 and should be able to be found online as well.  They are fascinating reading of their experiences.

Bill Rogers

Answer 11

My maternal grandfather, Barry Franklin Galbraith, kept a diary much of his adult life. The earliest surviving diaries are 1914, at the end of which he left his Alberta homestead to travel to England and join the war effort, and 1919  covering the end of his military service in East Africa, his return to England, his marriage to Annie Lucy (Nan) Whitehead and their life back at his homestead. Barry's diaries and those written by Nan in her later years have been donated to the Provincial Archives of Alberta.

Answer 12

I don't have a diary, but I have a copy of a great Aunt's memoirs written by her to celebrate her 80 years of life.  She married my grandfather's brother, AND her sister married another brother of my grandfather AND, her step mother was my grandfather's sister!  My grandfather's family came to the US from Germany in the early 1900s when he was a teenager and they all started off in the same community.  Her 36 page memoir has shed so much light on their early journey here in the US.  I've quoted from it and referenced it so much in documenting the various families.  Some of the pages of their farm life remind me of scenes from the old TV show, "Little House on the Prairie".  I love reading it!

Answer 13

Yes. I am so thankful for a cousin and her mother, who inherited a diary and a family tree journal. Flora Adell Cunningham Lake (1869-1959) wrote a daily diary with short entries about the weather, the neighbors, farm work and social events. Especially interesting are the accounts of her mother-in-law's illness preceding death in 1928. Her daughter, Elsie June Lake Neuenfeldt (1891-1995) wrote a family tree over her lifetime, which fills 78 pages, going back four or five generations, Lake, Cunningham, Scott, Demming, Hartsock, Phelps, Cain. These hand-written works have been scanned to pdf and invaluable reference resources!

Answer 14

I have my paternal great grandfather’s (George Williams McDonald) diary that is about 2 + years. It ends when he accompanied his brother-in-law’s move by railroad from PA to Richmond, VA. Always weather, who visited, and name of the traveling preachers and the topic of the sermon. He was an entrepreneur so I have a ledger of his sales and who he owed and who owed him.

Answer 15

Unfortunately, no.

Answer 16

I am the small end of a large funnel of WWII letters, several grandparent diaries, scads of pre-1900 photo albums (see my profile page for some samples of what I'm uploading). My favorite has to be the diary of Ebenezer W Blake who kept a diary all of his adult life in Maine and New Hampshire through horse-trades gone bad, business failures, details of the death of 3 of his 5 children who died in an 18-month span, abolitionist speeches, poetry, sermons, neighborhood gossip… My father and I spent a year transcribing, annotating and indexing his 137 page diary in 2000, and it is now uploaded  here: E W Blake Diary

Answer 17

My great Aunt Agnes was a missionary in Rangoon, Burma (now Myanmar).  She sent letters home every week to her sister, my grandmother.  These letters span the time from 1914-1919 the day she died 10 day after delivering a still born baby boy.  She had married the Baptist Minister also in Burma.

The added interest is this was also during WWI. Many letter from Milton, MA never made it to Burma as mail ships were bombed. All her letters made their way home.

I have since copies them and sent them to family members. They give great insight to our family.

Answer 18

I don’t know which extended family member currently has the original, but my 3x great-grandfather wrote a journal during his trip in 1849 from Illinois to California. Some family members transcribed it, added some research and copies of a few of the original pages, then gave out as gifts.  It’s quite a treasure!

Answer 19

Yes but it’s in Croatian! And I have not found anyone to translate yet

Comments

I do speak croatian. Maybe I can help out.

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How wonderful if you would help ! How would it be best to provide you with scanned pages if you are willing to help translate 1934 in Milwaukee WI through Emil Pudjak’s diary ? I am limited in my digital capabilities though  Emil married my great grandmother Kristina Andrichevich (Sondich,Schmidt then Pudjak) he is the only great grandpa I knew til he passed away when I was about 12 yrs old  I know word of mouth stories about him but that’s about it  he was a strong quiet gentle man and gave me my nick name “deedee” although I’m not sure how grandpa Pudjak would have spelled it thanks in advance for your help

Answer 20

My great grandfather, Almon Wilson Parmenter, participated in all 5 years of the Civil War.  He lied about his age, so, he left home at  age 16.  He kept journals all his adult life, so, that included his war years in Company C from Iowa.  He also kept a list of all the personnel in the company, including dates of entry and departure.  We have his written record of when he, along with those in his company, received word of Abraham Lincoln's assassination.  He also kept journals after he returned home, along with notations of births, marriages, deaths , etc. in his family. From his Bible, I learned that his firstborn, James, died in infancy.  Other family records lacked any information about James.

Comments

(The little imp in my brain has been waiting until after today's podcast to ask (TOTALLY tongue in cheek) — no relation to Wilton Parmenter, I'm sure, and no run-ins with the "Hekawis".  )

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Dear Melanie, I don't have any familiarity with either of the names you mention.  The Parmenters from whom I descend came to the new world from England to Massachusetts circa 1639.  They did participate on the Patriot side in the Revolutionary War from that colony.  Eventually, later generations moved to New York, then, Illinois when the Erie Canal was opened, then, to Iowa. My grandparents homesteaded in North Dakota, and gave birth to my mother, there.

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Beth, my comment was so very totally tongue in cheek because "Wilton Parmenter" was a fictional character in the television series "F Troop".  The "Hekawi" were the local to the equally fictional Fort Courage Native Americans (supposedly got their tribal name from becoming lost and one of them demanding to know "where the heck are we?") who were not exactly "the enemy".  This is why I waited until after the weekly live cast, because I didn't want to derail the hosts.