Have you ever kept a diary? Chances are if you have, you have either still got it hidden safely away or you have lost, misplaced, or otherwise parted ways with it. Whether you begin keeping a diary now or simply hold onto one that you wrote years ago, your diary or diaries could someday be a rich source of information for future generations of your family.
While we may go about our daily business thinking that there is nothing extraordinary or fascinating about how we pass our days, other people whether present or future would beg to differ. Just think about how much time you or other people that you know spend watching reality shows on television. Daily life is so much more fascinating when it is someone else’s daily life that you are watching or reading about. While this may be inspiration for you to begin keeping a diary, it could also inspire you to begin looking for old family diaries.
If you would like to find out whether any diaries were kept by your ancestors but you do not know where to begin, start by asking around. Ask your relatives whether they have any old diaries of their own, or that they might have inherited. If you are lucky enough to find one or more diaries this way, that is great. Hopefully those in possession of the diary or diaries will be kind enough to lend them to you for a bit so that you may read them, and learn what life was like for your ancestors.
If your inquiries to your relatives turn up nothing, it is still possible that diaries from your ancestors are out there somewhere. Other ways that you could locate them include posting queries on genealogy discussion boards online and writing to libraries and historical societies where your ancestors lived in case the diaries ended up in their care. If you still come up empty-handed, do not despair. You can learn a lot about what life may have been like for your ancestors by reading published diaries of other people that lived in the same geographic area as your ancestors at about the same time.