How Do I Use Personal Letters as Evidence?

Where should you start looking?

Use letters as dated personal evidence of place, mood and events, and check their dates and places against unit records. Letters were censored and delayed, so a letter date is not always the date of the events it describes.

Begin with the filters the catalogue itself uses, because a search that fights the catalogue structure will return noise however carefully it is worded. Do not let the first record you find set the shape of the research. The first record is a starting point, and starting points are often unrepresentative.

How to read this kind of entry

A medical entry, a pay entry, or a disciplinary entry should not be read as a character judgement. These are administrative categories, and they record process, not personality. A record that contradicts a family story is not necessarily wrong, and a story that contradicts a record is not necessarily false. Note both, and let dated entries decide, one at a time. Read appendices, maps and marginal notes as part of the entry, not as extras. An appendix can settle a place name, a date, or a name that the daily text leaves vague.

What are the common dead ends?

Where a record set is arranged by unit rather than by surname, a surname search alone will miss it. Mirror the catalogue structure, and the record set opens up. A search that works for one service may fail for another, because services filed differently. A method that fits the Army may mislead in the Navy, and vice versa.

Note dead ends in the timeline itself, with dates. A timeline that shows where the trail went cold is more honest, and more useful, than one that jumps the gap. A name that appears in a local list but in no national record may be a local spelling, a nickname, or a different person entirely. Test all three.

How do you work through it step by step?

Do not let a tool, a website, or an index set the order of your work. Tools serve steps; steps do not serve tools. If a step fails three times with three different filters, stop and change the record type. Persistence with one record type past three failures is rarely rewarded. The sequence below is a default, not a law. If a step produces a surprise, follow the surprise, and return to the sequence afterwards.

1. Describe the item itself first: what it shows, what it says, and what marks it carries.
2. Date the item from its own clues, uniform, badge, format or handwriting, before attaching it to a person.
3. Use the dated item to frame a record search, unit, place or date, rather than as a substitute for one.
4. Note the item reference and where it is held, so the next researcher can find it.

What to open after this one

A next step chosen from curiosity will entertain you. A next step chosen from the timeline will advance it. Prefer the timeline. A timeline should end each session with a named next step, not with a vague intention to look further. Name the record, the reference, and the question. If this guide has made the next record obvious, it has succeeded. Go to that record, and take the question with you.