Diaries recount for us firsthand what it was like to live during a given time period and at a particular place. If your female ancestor had kept a diary or journal, and it survived the years for you to appreciate, wouldn't you be overcome with joy?

Diaries and Journals
Although the terms have been used interchangeably, diaries tend to record people's feelings, while journals are more likely to enumerate activities and events. Regardless of what you call them, these accounts are the autobiographies of ordinary women like your ancestors, and these may be the only existing records of their personal lives. Along with genealogical data, diaries give you a wonderful glimpse into someone's daily life, thoughts, and attitudes. A diarist may also record her feelings on national events, such as a war or its impact on her, her family, and the community.

Historically, it was more common for women to keep diaries than men, but women tended to do so only during periods of emotional stress: times of war, when they moved away from family and friends, or when they were separated from their spouse (for example, if the husband was out west in search of gold). Some, diaries may have been written with the knowledge that one day they would be read by others, such as with overland travel diaries; these accounts were meant to be shared with those who remained at home.

And where would the worlds of literature and history be without the publication of Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl? Anne Frank was just an ordinary teen; her diary made her famous. This proves that diaries don't have to be written by famous people to be valuable. In fact, the diary your female ancestor may have written will likely contain the routine, the boring, and the mundane. But that's okay. We can read about famous events and people in the newspapers; but we can only learn about an ordinary woman's daily life from her written account.

Women of the Quaker religion were encouraged to keep spiritual journals that were published and shared with other women. There were about three thousand printed before 1725. Howard Brinton's Quaker Journals: Varieties of Religious Experience Among Friends (Wallingford, Pa.: Pendle Hill Publications, 1972) and Luella Wright's Literary Life of the Early Friends, 1650-1725 (New York: Columbia University, 1932) are two invaluable sources if you have Quaker ancestry; these books also list the whereabouts of surviving originals. Be aware, however, that these ...

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