Writing Genealogical Correspondence

by: Doug Smith

Like many hobbyists I learned good research habits by making mistakes or achieving success. Letter writing was no different. The responses to my first letters were embarrassing. The clerks who read my letters found them unclear or lacking in important information required to locate the record. After more than a few returned requests I did my best to follow these simple rules:

• Determine the correct address for the agency that can provide a certified copy of an official record.

• Always know the correct cost of the record or search you want. Send the payment in an acceptable form. I always send payment in the form of a money order. Virtually everyone accepts money orders since they are as good as cash.

• When I anticipate writing lots of letters to a specific area I purchase a phone book for that town or county.

• Be specific about the record you ask for and always include enough information about the person in the record you expect to find. When you send for a birth record, also mention the mother's maiden name and the father's name as well as any dates or places that might be used to confirm the identity of a person.

• Provide as much information as you can on one page. The longer the letter the less likely you are to get a good response.

• Be neat. Make sure your letter is easy to read.

• Keep in mind that official records are not kept primarily for genealogical purposes. Registrars are busy with the work of the courts and other public agencies.

• Don't write with a chip on your shoulder. An angry, pushy, or demanding attitude gets you nothing. Look at it this way: in most cases you will be writing for information where you don't pay taxes. The fee you pay for the record probably doesn't cover the entire cost of the search. Your success depends on how well you write the letter and in the quality of the information you supply. An angry letter is going to get very little notice. Angry letters can also ruin the next search for the next family historian who mails a request to that same clerk.

• Always send a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) with each request. I do this even if the cost of the record should include return postage.

The Palladium Interactive Records Requester is an excellent genealogical utility for creating and tracking my correspondence. It contains many of the addresses you will need for vital record searches in the U.S. and abroad. (Records Requester comes with default letters in 13 languages.) You can edit letters that the program creates to reflect your writing style, and even keep copies of the letters for later review. The handy correspondence log in the product not only tracks the letters it creates, it lets me log all my correspondence. For sure, I'll never write the same letter twice. My correspondence is clearer and includes all the important information.

Things have improved a lot since I started in the 1980s.