Correspondence

I have just returned from the monthly meeting of my local Family History Society where the speaker was our local archivist who was born and bred in Northern Ireland. She told me that on the occasion when she had to clear the house after the death of a relative she found a letter signed by a Mr. McIlhagga. Sadly that letter doesn't still exist and there is no memory of its contents, though it must have been important enough for the person who received it to keep it.

Mention of it is a timely reminder that such correspondence can be most valuable in building up a picture of an ancestor, be they sender or receiver. We have a wonderful example in the letter a copy of which was sent to me by a correspondent in Alberta Canada, from Henrietta the wife of Nathaniel Owens McIlhagga, which lists most of the dates of births, marriages and some deaths of her large family.

I included that letter in my blogs of 8th and 19th of May 2010. If any readers of this blog have family correspondence or of course other documents or photographs that they would be happy to share, I would be delighted to receive copies and preserve them in the clan archives.