Many of you might not know that in June 2023, Laura Jones and Janet Netz assumed co-chair duties of the Manuscript Committee. Although both of us are fairly new to volunteering at CGS, we aren’t new to the world of genealogy. Janet has been researching her family for over 20 years and Laura has been researching for over 30 years.
Linda Darby and Pat Bonderud had led the Manuscript Committee for many years, and chose to move on to other CGS projects. We thank Linda, especially, for all her help in the transition, and her continuing help and advice as we “learn the ropes.”
One of our first tasks was to learn what the Manuscript Collection is, and we thought it would be useful to disseminate the information to the general membership. According to the University of Arkansas, “Manuscript collections include personal, professional, and family papers; business and organizational records; and other unique, typically unpublished historical documents in a variety of formats, from scrapbooks to correspondence to digital media.”
The Manuscript Collection was launched more than a decade ago, and we’ve come a long way since 2009. A few articles from the past may be of interest:
- Announcing the CGS Manuscript Collection
- Our Manuscript Collection: Here’s How It Can Help Preserve Your Family Story
One of our first tasks was to learn what the Manuscript Collection is, and we thought it would be useful to disseminate the information to the general membership. According to the University of Arkansas, “Manuscript collections include personal, professional, and family papers; business and organizational records; and other unique, typically unpublished historical documents in a variety of formats, from scrapbooks to correspondence to digital media.”
Detail from a 1908 tablecloth commemorating a Griffin family picnic.
The CGS Manuscript Collection is essentially a collection of collections. Each individual collection is made up of papers of a genealogist, whether amateur or professional. Many of these collections include ancestry charts, family histories, letters, family group sheets, newspaper articles, certificates, compiled genealogies, vital and military records, deeds, probate records, society applications, photographs, and even some tintypes. While many of the records are copies, some are original. There are also artifacts, like this decorated tablecloth from 1908 commemorating a Griffin family gathering.
You can find the current Manuscript Collection Index on the CGS website. (We hope to have an updated Index posted soon.) A useful way to determine if the Manuscript Collection might have some materials that would help you with your research is to search the surnames associated with each collection. Once you find your surname, you can look at a description of the collection, including the geographies and time frames covered, to help you determine if it is worth looking at the collection.
With materials that reflect research by the genealogists, as with public family trees, the quality of the research varies. However, the contributors are all serious genealogists, so the quality should be good. If nothing else, the research may give you ideas to pursue.
Frank Covell’s diary: “May 10th 1872. Took Annie Peffers to dance. Made Charly Myars mad. He won’t hurt anybody I guess.” (Frank and Annie married the following year.)
The documents may be a gold mine. Yes, sometimes you’ll “just” find copies of census or land records that you could (nowadays) find online. But there are also original letters: for example, the Addington, Davis, Huntington collection is almost entirely original letters between family members dating from the late 1800s and early 1900s. Original documents include an original Alameda county land deed dating to 1867 and a handwritten genealogy written in the late 1600s in Boston. While the collection is heavily American, with quite a few families dating to colonial times, there are also records from England, France, Australia, and others.
You can access the Manuscript Collection in person with assistance from the Desk staff during our regular library hours (currently 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday and Friday, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday).
SEP
2023