ERASTUS SNOW AND FAMILY

FROM THEIR LETTERS

©2015 by Donald R. Snow
Sections of the Class Notes This page was last updated 2015-08-14.
Return to the Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group Home Page or Don's Class Listings Page .

    WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION

  1. Instructor is Donald R. Snow ( snowd@math.byu.edu ) of Provo and St. George.
  2. These notes with active Internet links are posted on  http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html , along with a set of notes about dealing with Letter Collections in Family History and the ERASTUS SNOW FAMILY LETTERS COLLECTION.
  3. Tips:  (1)  To form an icon on your desktop to open your browser and go directly to this (or any other) webpage, drag the icon from in front of the address in your browser onto your desktop.  (2)  To open a link from here in another tab, but keep your place in these notes, hold down the Control key while clicking the link.
  4. Problems for today:
    1. What do we learn about Erastus Snow and his life and times from his personal and family letters?
    2. What can you do with a collection of letters?

    ABOUT OUR ERASTUS SNOW FAMILY LETTER COLLECTION

  5. About 225 personal and family letters
  6. Have several hundred more business, official, and church letters that we haven't transcribed yet.
  7. Sources of the letters
    1. Passed down in our families, some only in typed form, so we don't know where the originals are
    2. Various libraries, including Church History Library, BYU Special Colllections, U of U Marriott Library
  8. Still need to determine sources of some
  9. Transcriptions are posted on my website (above) and are completely every-word searchable there
  10. Much editing still needed to identify some individuals and places mentioned
  11. POWERPOINT ABOUT ERASTUS SNOW AND FAMILY FROM THEIR LETTERS

    ABOUT LETTER COLLECTIONS IN FAMILY HISTORY

  12. See my other sets of notes on my website for many helps and more details about all of this
  13. Letter collections only discuss events and family life when someone is away, so they don't give a complete picture of the family.
  14. You never know if your collection is complete, since you may not have found all, some weren't saved, and some may have been destroyed on purpose.
  15. Where to find letters - family, libraries, newspapers, books
  16. Organizing, naming, and scanning
  17. Transcribing
  18. Editing
  19. Analyzing the collection
  20. What they tell us
    1. Glimpses into the lives, events, and personalities of the people
    2. Preserve things like reactions to historical events, language, and sayings of the times
    3. Genealogical information
    4. They "turn the hearts of the children to the fathers"

    CONCLUSIONS

  21. Letter collections give a summary of the life of the family, especially if family members were apart and the family wrote many letters
  22. Provides a database that can be searched for names, events, locations, etc.
  23. May lead you to family history information about other family members mentioned
  24. Turns your heart to your fathers

Return to the Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group Home Page or Don's Class Listings Page .