Wish you were here – Postcards as a Genealogical Tool

A Bath Group meeting and talk by Penny Walters.
After World War II, many people began visiting places on daytrips and weekend breaks. Postcards can be a fascinating source of social history and convey a snapshot in time. Postcards are cheap, visual and less formal correspondence and can be an informative genealogical tool. You can dissect the information of people and places mentioned, utilising addresses. You can then research the sender and recipient’s family, friends and acquaintances via records and archives. You can analyse the sender’s handwriting and signature, and reveal gossip, stories, and anecdotes from within the correspondence. You can then potentially find birth, marriage and death records, census information and utilise maps to incorporate genealogical revelations into your tree, and connect with relatives or descendants. There are also avenues for purchasing postcards, and details of these will be given, so if someone is researching a family from a specific area, then postcards will inevitable be available for purchase from shops or online. This can help with background contexts and social history. A number of picture postcard examples will be given from around the world. Wish you were here!