Most genealogy runs on official records: censuses, birth and death certificates, marriage licenses, deeds and probate files. Those records tell you who someone was on paper. A postcard can tell you something different: where a person was on a particular day, who they wrote to, how they spelled their name, what they cared about enough to mention, and sometimes what their handwriting looked like.
This post covers how to read an old postcard for family history clues, which records to pair it with, and how to research a sender or recipient you don't know. It ends with a few thoughts about privacy and respect, because the people on these cards were real, and many have descendants living today.
What a postcard can give you
Every mailed postcard carries some combination of these clues.
The recipient's name and address
This is often the single most useful piece of information. A card addressed to "Mrs. J. H. Smith, 14 Elm St., Springfield" puts a specific person at a specific address. Many early cards were addressed with initials rather than first names, and married women were frequently addressed by their husband's name, so you may need other records to work out exactly who is meant.
Small-town and rural cards sometimes have nothing more than a name, a town and a state, or a rural route number. That was enough for the local post office, and it still tells you where the person lived.
The postmark
The postmark gives the town, state and date the card entered the mail. That places the sender, or at least the sender's post office, in time and space. Machine cancels often give the time as well. My guide on how to read a postmark explains the different kinds and how to make out faint ones.
Receiving postmarks, stamped on the back by the destination office, also appear on some early cards and can tell you when the card arrived.
The message
Messages range from a few words to a full report. Even short ones can be revealing: who is visiting whom, who is sick, who has a new baby, who has moved. Look for:
- First names and nicknames of family members.
- Mentions of places: farms, churches, schools, workplaces.
- Events: weddings, funerals, births, moves, trips, illnesses.
- Weather and season, which help confirm dates.
- The signature, which may be a first name, a nickname or initials.
The picture
The front matters too. A view of a church, school, factory, farm or main street may be exactly where the sender lived or worked. Sometimes the sender marked the picture with an X to show a house or window. And a real photo card might show the family itself, its home or its business.
Photographer and publisher
Real photo postcards sometimes carry a photographer's name or studio stamp on the front or back. A studio name can point you to a town, and city directories or local histories can tell you when that studio was active. That helps date the photograph and place the family in a particular town at a particular time. My guide to real photo postcards covers how to read stamp boxes and studio marks.
An example from my own boxes
One of my cards shows how much a single postcard can hold. It is a real photo general view of the village of Williamsville, Vermont, a village in the town of Newfane in Windham County. It was mailed from Brattleboro on May 22, 1909, with a one-cent green Franklin stamp, and addressed to Mr. F. J. Atwood in Concordia, Kansas.
The message is dated "Bratto. May 22 1909" and signed "Allyn." The writer says they had just come back from a stay of more than two weeks on a farm in the hills beyond Williamsville, that it had done them a lot of good, absolute rest, and that an X on the front shows about where they were. They add that it rained every day that week and that it had been rather a backward spring. Some words can't be made out.
I haven't researched F. J. Atwood or Allyn, and I don't know how they were related, if at all. But look at what the card offers a family historian who might be connected to them:
- A recipient's initials, surname and town, in 1909.
- A sender's first name or surname, a town where they were on a specific date, and a stay of more than two weeks in the hills beyond a named village.
- A connection between a family in Kansas and someone in southern Vermont.
- A picture marked with the approximate place of a farm.
Records that pair well with postcards
A postcard is a starting point. These records help turn its clues into a fuller picture.
The federal census
The United States census, taken every ten years, lists households by name, with ages, birthplaces, occupations and relationships. By law, individual census records are kept confidential for 72 years; the most recent census open to the public is 1950, which was released on April 1, 2022. Most of the 1890 census was destroyed by fire in 1921, so researchers working on that period have to lean on other sources.
If a card is postmarked in 1909, the 1900 and 1910 censuses are the natural places to look for the sender and recipient. Search by surname and town, and use ages and household members to confirm you have the right people.
City directories
City directories were published by private companies for many American towns and cities, often annually. They typically list adult residents alphabetically, with address and occupation, and sometimes a spouse's name. Many also include a street-by-street section and listings of businesses, churches and organizations.
They are excellent for:
- Confirming that a person lived at the address on a card in a given year.
- Finding a woman's first name when a card uses "Mrs." and her husband's name.
- Tracing moves from year to year.
- Finding when a photographer's studio or a publisher was active.
Many directories have been digitized, and local libraries and historical societies often hold printed runs.
Local newspapers
Small-town papers ran "local items" columns full of who visited whom, who was sick, and who went where. If a card's message mentions a trip, a visit or an illness, a newspaper from the same week may mention it too. Digitized newspaper collections are searchable by name and place, though old type often confuses the search software, so try variant spellings.
Vital records, church records and cemeteries
Birth, marriage and death records, and church registers of baptisms and burials, help confirm relationships. Cemetery records and gravestones give dates and often family groupings. A first name on a card, combined with a death record, can confirm a relationship that the card only hints at.
Maps and atlases
County atlases and maps, some showing property owners' names, can help place a farm or house mentioned on a card. That can be especially useful when the sender has marked an X on a view, as on my Williamsville card.
How to research a sender or recipient
When I look at an unknown name on a card, this is a sensible order of work.
- Transcribe everything. Write down the full address, the postmark, the stamp, the message and the signature, exactly as written. Mark uncertain readings with a question mark, and note illegible words rather than guessing.
- Date the card. Use the postmark if there is one. If not, the card's design gives a range, as explained in my guide on how to date an old postcard.
- Identify the places. Find the sender's post office, the recipient's town, and any places in the message or picture. Note counties as well as towns, because records are often filed by county.
- Start with the recipient. The recipient usually has a full name and address, which makes them easier to find in a census or directory.
- Search the census nearest the date. Look for the recipient in the town on the card. Note household members, ages and occupations.
- Check a city directory for the same year, if one exists, to confirm the address.
- Look for the sender among the recipient's relatives. A first-name signature often belongs to a sibling, child, parent or cousin. Census households, obituaries and family trees can help.
- Search newspapers for both names, and for events mentioned in the message.
- Keep notes on sources. Record where every fact came from, so that you or someone else can check it later.
Common pitfalls
- Assuming the sender lived where the card was mailed. People mailed cards while traveling. The postmark shows where the card entered the mail, not necessarily where the sender lived.
- Misreading handwriting. Old scripts, abbreviations and faded ink cause many errors. "Bratto." on my card is an abbreviation of Brattleboro, for example.
- Confusing people with the same name. Small towns often had several people with the same name in different generations. Use ages and household members to tell them apart.
- Reading too much into a message. A cheerful note may hide a difficult situation, and a brief one may mean nothing at all. Let the records lead.
Finding cards connected to your family
If you are looking for cards that relate to your own family, a few approaches help:
- Search by town and county, not only by name. Most cards are listed and filed by the place they show, so a card addressed to your great-grandmother is more likely to turn up among views of her town than under her name.
- Look for views of places your family knew: their church, school, workplace, main street or farm.
- Read the backs. Sellers don't always transcribe messages, so look at photos of the back yourself.
- Ask local historical societies, which sometimes hold postcard collections organized by town.
The where to buy page explains how my listings are organized and how to search them by town, which may help if you are looking for a particular place.
Privacy and respect
Postcards were open mail. Anyone who handled them could read them, and their writers knew it. Even so, they were written for one person, not for the public, and the people named on them had lives that their families care about.
A few principles I try to follow:
- Be careful with recent cards. Cards from the middle of the twentieth century onward may name people who are still alive, or whose children certainly are. I would not publish private details about living people from a postcard.
- Handle sensitive content gently. A message might mention illness, money trouble, a family quarrel or a death. These are part of history, but they belong to a family, and they deserve tact when shared.
- Don't overstate what you know. If you think a card might relate to a particular family, say "might." A confident wrong identification can spread through online family trees and be repeated for years.
- Share with family when you can. If you identify the descendants of the people on a card, it is a kind thing to let them know. A card in a dealer's box can mean a great deal to a great-grandchild.
Caring for family cards
If you have cards that belonged to your own family, keep them safe. Store them in archival sleeves, out of light and damp, and don't glue, tape or laminate them. My guide on how to store old postcards has the details. Scan both sides, so that the message and address are preserved even if the card is lost or damaged, and keep a written transcription with each card.
A small window into a life
A postcard rarely tells a whole story. More often it gives you one day: a name, a town, a sentence about the weather or a trip, a mark on a picture. But genealogy is built out of exactly those fragments. Put a postcard beside a census page, a city directory and a newspaper column, and a person who was only a name can begin to come back into focus.