No one signed this 1968 postcard sent to my great-grandfather in 1968. Given the salutation of “Dear Dad,” it was obviously written by one of his seven children.
This tip isn’t about determining which child wrote their Dad a postcard in 1968 and mailed it from Wyoming (some handwriting comparison will have to be done, if samples can be found). It’s about those documents and records that often have pieces of information that we think are missing.
The reality of it is that sometimes those “missing” details, while not stated in the item, were clearly known to the individuals at the time. M. J. Habben likely knew which of his children was travelling out west in the summer of 1968. He may even have known their handwriting as well.
Those pieces of information, likely known to him, are not known to us. The next time you find a document or record that is “missing” pieces of information consider that they may have been obvious at the time–in some cases even redundant.
One response
Like my 4x great-grandfather’s journal kept on his one and only trip to America. The months and years were entered every day, but not the year. It took a quite a bit of resarch to pinpoint it at 1852, so as to retrieve the passenger list.