Interpret

Learn strategies about how to interpret and understand the writings of your ancestors and others.

Whether you are reviewing a letter, journal, postcard, or other writing of an ancestor, there are several strategies for evaluating and gaining the most from the entire presentation. You are looking at the written word, but you are also looking at paper, images, and handwriting. All provide clues and information about your ancestor. The following represents different angles from which to view the writings of your ancestors.

5 Strategies for Interpreting Writings

Impressions by look and feel

As you hold the writings in your hands, they make an impression before reading the words. You can glean information from the texture, condition, paper type, style of writing—which suggests the writer’s care or haste—depth, surface, care of the folded sheets of a letter or the binding of the diary, and the time between inscriptions. The following clues can help you begin to make guesses about the writer, such as what their social class might have been:

  • Is the paper the ordinary lined “blue” sheets of everyday mid-nineteenth century use, or is it embossed and edged?
  • Women and men were schooled to have very different handwriting.
  •  The document might exhibit an array of nibs (the sharpened point of a quill pen; a pen point), papers, envelopes, letter cases, letter clips, writing desks, and other objects associated with writing among well-to-do Americans of the era. The absence of these features may indicate that the writer was of lower economic standing.
    Think in terms of plot, characters, and language of the script. Think of the last article, story, or even movie you watched. Who was the main character, and who were the subordinate characters? What was the plot? How was the script written? As you review writings, you gain a feel for the individuals involved, their roles, and the plot’s events.

Becoming acquainted with the characters

In a diary, we depend on the writer to introduce us to the individuals in their life. Sometimes persons are named, while other times we are left to figure them out for ourselves. When it comes to letters, the introductions to characters are hit and miss. The writer wasn’t writing to us, but usually to one who knew the people being mentioned.

Try to understand who the friends and family members were, mainly if you use unedited communications. Sometimes a family rarely uses given names in correspondence. In such cases, start slow until you can determine the identity of “Dear Son” or “Your loving Daughter.” The same holds for nicknames. During my father’s years as a youth (the 1930s and 40), it was common to have nicknames such as Frip, Jiggs, and Stu.

What inspired the plot?

As you survey the writing, think about whether a particular circumstance inspired the writing. Is there a large-scale “story” holding the writings together? We find this type of inspiration in writings during the period of war or changes in one’s life. In other cases, diaries—and especially letters—are focused on the ordinariness of the writer’s life. In either case, though, surveying the text for a sense of the main narrative thread is an excellent way to prompt questions about the text as you begin to read more closely.

Look for unique language

Think about your use of instant messaging. We use words, phrases, and acronyms to help us communicate faster in our writing. For example, TTYL (talk to you later), 🙂 (smile), K (okay), TY (thank you), and Ditto (I agree). Like us, our ancestors also had interjections into their correspondence that stood for something else. For instance, many modern readers are puzzled by some correspondents’ interjection of “D.V.” amid specific sentences expressing hope (“by now, D.V., you are safely at home”) when these letters are not the recipient’s initials. Then, finally, one writer solves the puzzle for us by spelling it out: Deo Volente, “God willing.”

Such puzzles will help you be alert that the meaning of certain words or phrases is coded. For example, in the mid-nineteenth century, a woman had “taken a cold” almost always meant that she was pregnant.

How does the writer relate the experiences of their life?

Personal texts are usually begun by the accounts of critical events that occur over time and are important enough to write about, such as a death, a child leaving home, a marriage, a natural disaster, work, etc.

The story of events also reveals the interrelationships of the writers, friends, family, acquaintances, and strangers. The relationships shape our understanding of how the writer fits into the events and through which eye we see the interpretation of what is written.

Most letters are written by “news” or are rich with events, which the writer tries to describe in detail. You may see how the writer describes (or filters) the same event or news to different people in his life. For example, an experience about crossing a river and almost drowning may be written in full detail for a friend. Still, to a mother, the description may be only that the writer became wet when crossing a river.

In letters, you will find other parties sensitive to the absence of one another. Some, however, focus on the distance apart. In contrast, other letters focus on bringing one closer together—such as in the case of lovers or parents and children blaming each other for neglect or praising each other for timely and satisfying letters.

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