What was it Like? Where to find Diaries and Letters

As a follow-up to my post They Came to America: The Immigrant Experience I thought I would put together websites that may be helpful in finding diaries that share experiences with your ancestor. Off the top, any large archive like the National Archives or major Library or University is a good place to start. You must break down your ancestor into a list of categories: time lived, place lived, nationality, occupation, war or conflict.

LARGE REPOSITORIES

• Digital Public Libraries of America (DPLA): Search multiple institutions at once for digitized materials.
• ArchiveGrid & SNAC: Find catalog records for manuscript collections across many repositories.
• FamilySearch: Good for genealogy, linking records to specific collections.
• The Great Diary Project in the UK
• NIOD Netherlands Institute for War Holocaust and Genocide: diaries
• A Diary Archive in Ams­ter­dam Offers a Trove of Untold Stories: Jewish holocaust
• American Diary Project
• Historical Archives of the European Union: Video showing how to use

CIVIL WAR DIARIES

• Virginia Tech Collection both Union & Confederate
• Civil War Digital
• Penn State Collection
• Auburn University
• University of Michigan
• Waiting for Orders: The Civil War Diary of Micajah A. Thomas
• The Civil War Diary of John A. Blair
• Two Southern Women Writers: the Civil War Journals of Emily Jane Liles Harris and Mary Boykin Chesnut
• The Journal of Elizabeth Maxwell Alsop Wynne, 1862-1878
• What Sorrows and What Joys: The Civil War Diaries of Cloe Tyler Whittle, 1861-1866
• A diary kept on the battlefield in the year of 1863 John A. Holtzman
• Village Life in America 1852-1972 as told in the diary of a school-girl Caroline Cowls Richards

EARLY NEW ENGLAND

• A voyage into New England begun in 1623. and ended in 1624
• Abigail Adams Diary of her Return Voyage to America, 30 March–1 May 1788 (Pres John Adams wife)
• Logbook of the Stanton (Ship) of Fairhaven, Mass., mastered by John Church, keeper unknown, on voyage from 1833 May 1–1836 March 12
• New-Englands plantation, with the sea journal and other writings
• Journal of Richard Mather. 1635. Bristol, England to New England
• The Diary of Anna Green Winslow : A Boston School Girl of 1771
• An account of two voyages to New-England : made during the years 1638, 1663

Use Specific Search Terms:

• Keyword: surname + diary, location + personal narrative, family records, letters, manuscripts.
• Subject Headings: Use terms like “Diaries,” “Travelers’ writings,” “Women’s diaries,” or specific historical periods, ie.: 18th century”

Have fun! This can lead you down many a gopher hole.

Kelly Wheaton ©2026 All Rights Reserved