Suggestions for fleshing out the social history of our ancestor's times.
Search manuscript collections, I.e., the National Union Catalog of Manuscript
Collections (known as the "NucMuc") available through the Library of Congress
site. While you may not find anything that belonged to your specific
ancestor, others at the same time probably lived very similar lives. The catalogs of
state libraries are also a great source...especially in the states that
interest you. Look for diaries, letters, ledgers, weather records, etc.
Old newspapers (many, many online at various sites) are a great source of
what was going on! The ads, the personal social columns and the news bites all
enrich our understanding. Don't ignore the "big" newspapers...they often
picked
up local stuff...just like today.
PERSI (Periodic Source Index) , I think available free if you hunt around.
This is the index to the collection of periodicals at the Allen County (IN)
Public Library...the world's largest collection of periodicals in the world of
interest to genealogists . Lots of articles appear in places far from where our
ancestors actually were. If you find things of interest, you can order copies
from the library for a small fee. I think they do everal for the same fee so
don't order "one at a time"
Also, don't neglect the world of history, social studies and archeology that
may not, on first glance, seem like genealogy sources ... but they are!
Enough for now
Virginia Banerjee