RLP 56 – Researching in Libraries and Archives: The Do’s and Don’ts with Melissa Barker

Nicole (0s):
This is Research Like a Pro, Episode 56: Researching in Libraries and Archives the Do’s and Don’ts with Melissa Barker. Welcome to Research Like a Pro a Genealogy Podcast about taking your research to the next level, hosted by Nicole Dyer and Diana Elder accredited genealogy professional. Diana and Nicole are the mother-daughter team at FamilyLocket.com and the creators of the Amazon bestselling book, Research Like a Pro a Genealogists Guide. I’m Nicole co-host of the podcast join Diana and me as we discuss how to stay organized, make progress in our research and solve difficult cases.

Nicole (43s):
Let’s go. Hi everyone and welcome to the show. I’m Nicole Dyer, co-host of The Research Like a Pro Genealogy Podcast and today I’m here with accredited genealogist, Diana Elder, my mother. Hi Diana, How are you?

Diana (1m 0s):
I am doing great. How are you Nicole?

Nicole (1m 4s):
Great. We’re having fun today because we were talking with Melissa Barker, the Archive Lady. Everyone listening, we do actually record more than one podcast at once. So last week you probably heard us talking with Melissa and this week we’re talking with her a little bit more. So today’s topic is do’s and don’ts for researching in the libraries. But before we get into that, let’s do a listener spotlight from Jamie Lee on Apple Podcasts. She left us the review that said, “Fun podcast. Great to listen to this mother-daughter team.” Thank you Jamie. We actually get that a lot, that being a mother-daughter team is fun and people like that and you know, it really is the best thing ever.

Nicole (1m 45s):
We love it. So we’re lucky.

Diana (1m 48s):
We are really lucky and I am really lucky because other people worry a lot about what’s gonna happen to all of their research when they’re gone. And I don’t have to worry about that ’cause I know Nicole’s going to take care of it all, right Nicole?

Nicole (2m 1s):
Right. You just have to worry about which grandchild is gonna take it over.

Diana (2m 6s):
Well that’s up to you because I’ll be long gone. So today we are going to talk more about archives with Melissa, the Archive Lady. And if you missed the previous episode, it’s episode 55 and it’s titled, It’s Not All Online Researching in Archives. We had so much fun talking with Melissa and getting just loads of information about the types of records in archives and the different types of archives even and how to access them. And today we’re going to do part two of that and today’s episode we’re talking about the dos and the don’ts of researching in archives. So I’m excited to hear from Melissa and her experience as an archivist and I’m sure all of these fun do’s and don’ts are from her experiences.

Diana (2m 55s):
So we’re excited to learn more about this thing called archive research.

Melissa Barker (3m 0s):
Oh, Thank you for having me Nicole and Diana. I appreciate it. You know, the mother-daughter thing, I have to tell a real quick story about me and my daughter. I’ve been doing genealogy research for 29 years and I would drag my daughter to every library and archive that there is that I did research in and she absolutely hated every minute of it. And so when she became an adult, she, you know, she swore she would never, ever, ever darken the door of library again. And so what is she doing? She is the assistant librarian at our local library.

Diana (3m 31s):
No way. That’s so funny. Never say never.

Melissa Barker (3m 35s):
I work with her, you know, a little bit ’cause it’s the local library and the archives kind of going hand in hand. So I work with her a little bit, too. So the mother-daughter thing is, is alive and well here.

Nicole (3m 45s):
I love it. Oh my goodness. Alright, well let’s dive into researching at the archives. What should we do to prepare for a visit to an archive?

Melissa Barker (3m 56s):
I think there’s quite a lot that you should do before you actually visit an archive. Before you get in the car and drive or get on that airplane, there’s actually a lot that you can do to make your visit more efficient and to maybe be more successful with your research. Some of those things are to contact the archive well in advance. And when I say well in advance, I don’t mean the day before you leave or even maybe the week before you leave, but I would actually give it a couple, two, three weeks. And there’s a myriad of things that you need to be finding out. First and foremost, you need to ask them, are you going to be open on these days when I’m going to be there? Their website may say, we’re gonna be open, these are our days and hours, but they may be having the carpet replaced on that day and they don’t have it on their website.

Melissa Barker (4m 44s):
And so when you show up and there’s a sign on the door that says, sorry, we’re closed, the carpet’s being replaced and you’ve traveled there, that is something that you need to know. Also, check their website out. Many of our archives and libraries have wonderful websites and they include indexes and finding aids. If you can get into their indexes and finding aids, narrow down and make notes of what you specifically want to look at when you get there. You will be going through these records very quickly because most of us only have so much time at a repository. I would also send an email to the archive or library and tell them what you’re coming to do research on, maybe even giving them specific master collections that you want to look at or specific records because they may even pull those records for you and have them ready when you show up at the facility.

Melissa Barker (5m 42s):
Those are some of the great things that I tell genealogists to do way before you even start to travel. These are just things that are really, really going to help you once you get there.

Diana (5m 53s):
I’ve heard a lot of horror stories about people making this big trip and then getting there and it’s closed or they’re only open two hours a week, So I can second that. Man, that would be really disappointing. Okay, so let’s just have a scenario here that I’m going on a research trip and I have got it all verified. They’re gonna be open, I know what to expect once I get there, but what do I need to do to prepare my actual research for when I go to the archive?

Melissa Barker (6m 23s):
That is a great question and every one of us should prepare before we actually do the research. One of my big things is I tell genealogists to compile a to do list. To do list will serve two purposes. It will keep you focused on your research. I don’t know how many times I’ve walked into an archive or a library or wherever these records are and I just get overwhelmed by what I see, what I’m experiencing, the processes of what do I have to do, you know, what do I have to do to get to this collection, to find this room if you’re in a huge facility. And so if you have your to-do list and you go by your to-do list, you check it off the first, the second, the third and go through there methodically.

Melissa Barker (7m 7s):
You’ll be so very happy with yourself when you get home and you don’t look at your to-do list and go, oh, I didn’t follow my to-do list and I just missed this and I missed this. And it was right there. Now what happens to many of us, and I am also guilty of this, as we are going through our to-do list, we see things that are not on our to-do list. We call these bright shiny objects, things that just catch us and we just want to run with it. I would really encourage you not to do that. Make a note of it. Maybe if it’s in the same box, you can look at it, address it, maybe make a copy of it, but try to stay with that to-do list and it will really help you to stay focused.

Diana (7m 53s):
Yeah, that’s gotta be so difficult, especially if you’ve traveled a long ways. You just have to want to explore everything, I’m sure. I love that idea of a list and that really feeds into the idea of having your research plan and knowing ahead of time what you’re going to be searching for. We know we talked a lot in the last episode about making good friends with the archivist, So I would assume that would be really key also, once we get to the archive, you know, what are some things that we need to think about with talking to the archivist?

Melissa Barker (8m 26s):
Well we talked in the last episode about establishing a relationship. You know, that can start way before you get there. By emailing and talking to them on the phone. I would suggest you email more than you talk on the phone because they’re very busy people. So emailing is a fantastic source to use. I can tell you that my genealogy experience over the years, I have found it difficult to correspond with archivists and librarians by email. But this day and time our librarians and our archivists are very well versed with email. Now they’re usually quicker to respond, and when I say quicker it does take them a little bit of time. But I would talk to them on a regular basis leading up to your trip, letting them know what you’re looking for, letting them know that you’re coming and this is what I found on your website.

Melissa Barker (9m 15s):
I would love to look at, you know, this particular book, this particular management collection so that when you show up, they’re not surprised. What if they have records that are in an offsite storage building, they’re not even in the building that you’re doing research in. So that gives them time to get those records. Also, keep in mind that records sometimes in some archives are what I call very fluid. Meaning that our archives sometimes run out of room or they have to adjust and move collections. And when I say move, it may be that they move it to a different repository such as a local county archive might move something to the state archives.

Melissa Barker (9m 55s):
And so when you’re looking for particular records and you talk to the archives, just verify that those records are actually still there.

Diana (10m 3s):
Oh, that’s a great idea because it might be on the website and they haven’t changed the website but they’ve been moved. And so how disappointing would it be to get there and find that they’re not there. And maybe that’s the only reason you went to that archive was to view those records.

Melissa Barker (10m 18s):
And another good question to ask when you’re at an archives, especially visiting and, and especially you can do this when you’re emailing as well, talk to them about what they have that has been donated or that is new. These may not be processed yet and ready for researchers, but kind of pick their brains a little bit about what have you gotten in lately, what has been donated or what have you processed, what’s new that you’ve processed and ready for researchers. These things also may not be on their website, but the archivists will know what they’ve done and what might be available.

Diana (10m 51s):
Hmm, that’s really interesting. I wonder if we should broaden our searches a bit too, rather than going in and saying, I want everything on John Smith, you know, born this date. If maybe we say something more like, you know, what do you have on the Smith family or what do you have on this little township? Maybe we tend to think too narrowly for archives. Would that be a a good suggestion to broaden a bit?

Melissa Barker (11m 13s):
Absolutely. You know, we talked in the last episode about things like diaries and scrapbooks. If you are very focused on just your surname or just your particular ancestor, you know the archivist is gonna follow along with you because they want to help you in what your goal is. But if you’ll open that up and broaden that too, do you have diaries or scrapbooks for people in the community? And the reason I say that is because maybe your John Smith didn’t do a diary or have a scrapbook, but some of his neighbor friends did them and so maybe they have information in their records about your ancestor.

Melissa Barker (11m 53s):
So making that broad search and explaining to the archivist who you’re researching, what area of town, what area of the county your ancestors were from, it might trigger the archivist mind to think, oh wait, we have this collection of records that might be of interest to you.

Diana (12m 12s):
I love that idea. So it’s more like doing a subject search rather than a name search. You know, trying to just think of some different types of things to give the archivist ideas for you. That’s a really fun idea.

Nicole (12m 26s):
Is there a way that we can, at the repository look at like a list or kind of an index of all of the manuscript collections that are held there?

Melissa Barker (12m 35s):
Absolutely. Many, many of our archives will either have an in-house computer with an index of the finding aids or the collections on the in-house computer, or they may have those indexes in print form in three room binders or something. And so you just need to ask the archivist, you know, do you have an index of your management collections? Those will probably contain finding aids and these also could be on their website. So it’s also important to check there before you go and you want to study, I mean literally study the finding aids. The finding aids is going to be several pages. It’s going to accumulate at the end with a contents listing. And that’s really your main focus is the contents listing ’cause that’s going to give you the box by box, folder by folder listing of what is exactly in the collection.

Melissa Barker (13m 21s):
Now you might be just a tad disappointed when you look at the contents listing and you see a box that says correspondence folder 1: 1924 to 1927 and it doesn’t list any surnames, but it gives you a little bit of the information that you think, okay, I might want to look in there because that timeframe matches and that might help me. You know, so that’s another part of broadening our thinking, looking for very, very specific things you may miss out on some of the more broader things that might contain the information you’re looking for.

Diana (13m 57s):
Yeah, that’s really important. You know, when you were talking about Box one Folder three Correspondence, that makes me think of source citations because we’re going to be so mad at ourselves if we leave the archive and have not gotten all the information for source citations. So do you have some tips for how do you do that on site as you’re looking at these things?

Melissa Barker (14m 18s):
To me it’s more of training ourselves to do it. I don’t know how many genealogists when they get into the archives and especially if they find something and they’re doing the happy dance and they’re so excited and if they have someone with them, they’re just all, you know, jumping for joy, they forget to do the source citation. And so I try to calm them down and they say, I want a copy of this. And I say, well let’s also make a copy of the title page or let’s make a copy of something that will tell you what this is from. And so what you can do for yourself is that on your to-do list, make yourself a note source citations or some kind of notation that you can visually see that will help you to remember to cite your sources at the repository ’cause once you get home and you have all of these copies, and even if you’re taking digital copies, let’s say you’re taking pictures with your phone or you have a handheld scanner if the archives allows it, the best thing to do, especially if you’re using a book, if you found something in a book, take a photo of the title page and then of the page that you want.

Melissa Barker (15m 21s):
Maybe take a photograph of the file folder from the managed collection that gives you the headings and then digitize with your phone the documents. But it’s very important to stop and take a minute and write down where you found the information that you found. Because believe me, when you get back home, you’re going to wish that you had done it.

Diana (15m 43s):
And I think that every single one of us has done that, gotten home and then just been so mad to ourselves we didn’t record that. Oh boy. So I love the idea of putting that right on your to-do list, having a place for the citation or the information that you’re gonna need to make the citation so that it just triggers that in your brain to get it. And I also love the idea of taking a photo of like the vertical file or what the box of the manuscript collection looked like. That would be so great to attach to that source so that if you’re trying to explain where it came from, you’ve got that visual. That’s a really great idea.

Melissa Barker (16m 20s):
I’m a visual learner and so that really resonates with me, You know, and it also takes less time to snap that photograph of the box or the folder or something than it does to sit down and write. And so that’s, I use that a lot.

Diana (16m 35s):
Yeah, to write the description would take longer. The other thing that I just wondered about would be finding other repositories, because if we have traveled a distance to a new area or a new state, we’re not familiar, but I’m guessing the archivist might know other places to direct us if our research is, needs to be broadened to other repositories. Is that right?

Melissa Barker (16m 58s):
That is very right. One of the things that we as archivists encounter are people looking for particular types of records. And so, and you can imagine we get them over and over and over. And so when you’re looking for a particular type of record and it’s not at that particular archive, you know, talk to the archivists and say, well, where do you suppose that these are located? And I, I, I can pretty much guarantee you that they’ve been asked it before. And so they have probably either looked into where they are or they know where they’re at and they can guide you to where those records are located. So always talk to the archivist about other archives in the area. Maybe there’s a museum, maybe there’s a historical society that collects records.

Melissa Barker (17m 39s):
Maybe they know that those records had been transferred to the state archives. It’s always great to get the perspective from the archivist or librarian about where other records could be located.

Nicole (17m 50s):
That’s a great point. Well let’s go over some of the dos that we have covered. So we’ve had some great advice about making a to-do list, asking about manuscript collections and vertical files. Do ask the archivist to refer you to other repositories and definitely cite your sources before you leave the repository. So let’s switch gears now and talk about some of the don’ts. What are some of the don’ts when visiting an archive?

Melissa Barker (18m 21s):
Before we go to the don’ts, one more do I want to give you, that’s probably one of the top ones that we should have talked about and that is ask about parking. You don’t think about it until you’re there and you’re circling the building going, where am I supposed to park? And I really was initiated into this when, years and years ago when I started doing research at the Tennessee State Library and Archives in Nashville, Tennessee. It’s only about an hour and a half away from me and it’s, I call it my home away from home, and it’s in downtown Nashville and literally there are only about 10 parking spaces for this state archives. Finding out the parking situation of the facility that you’re going to could be very, very important to you.

Melissa Barker (19m 3s):
And especially if you’re not very mobile. I know that in Nashville, if those parking places are taken, you have to park at a parking garage and then walk uphill to the state archives. So put parking on your to-do list to check into. So some of the don’ts that you would need to think about is don’t be surprised if when you show up at the archive they want to search your belongings. Stealing of records has become very prevalent in the United States and other countries. Some people just take things and so they’re going to search your purses, your computer bags, anything that you bring in your backpacks and they’re probably gonna search you when you leave.

Melissa Barker (19m 46s):
Don’t be alarmed at that. They’re just trying to protect the records that are in their care. They may ask you to put your things in a locker, so don’t be surprised about that. They’re perfectly safe and the usual will let you take in maybe a pad of paper or a pencil and sometimes not even that. And sometimes they’ll give you the materials that you need. And don’t be surprised if they ask you to put on gloves to handle particular items in the archives. I’m asked about gloves all the time, and over the years the thoughts in the archives world about gloves has changed. Used to, they suggested you put gloves on for everything. Now they just want you to put gloves on when you’re handling photographs.

Melissa Barker (20m 29s):
The reason being is because when you’re handling any document, but especially the delicate documents, you cannot feel the textile sensation in your fingertips if you have gloves on. And so you can actually cause more damage handling documents with gloves than without gloves. They still may ask you to put on gloves. It depends on the repository, but definitely for photographs, because the oil and dirt on our hands, no matter how clean they are, transfer onto those photographs. And if a lot of people handle that photograph, it could cause damage over time.

Nicole (21m 1s):
Wow. Have you seen a lot of really fragile documents that just can’t be handled at your archive?

Melissa Barker (21m 7s):
Yes, and I do a lot of teaching about records preservation and about folding and unfolding records. A lot of it comes from the fact that over time people have folded and unfolded a particular document such as a letter, you fold it, put it in envelope, take it out of the envelope, unfold it, things like that. And the more that you do that, it breaks down the paper at the folds. But I’ve got a document that was folded down to like a two by two square. It’s a regular piece of paper, but it had been folded down and unfolded so many times that all of those folds disintegrated and the piece of paper actually fell into about six different pieces. And so we kind of had to piece it back together.

Nicole (21m 48s):
Wow.

Melissa Barker (21m 49s):
Many times in archives what will happen is these more delicate documents will be digitized and then the researcher’s only allowed to see the digitized version on like an in-house computer. They may not even let you even hold the delicate documents.

Diana (22m 5s):
That makes sense because we really are trying to preserve things. So that’s really good to know. Okay, so we’ve talked a lot about kind of some of the specific don’ts. What about with our research? You know, we, none of us want to be the annoying genealogist that gets in there and commits a bunch of errors when we’re at the facility. So what are some things we should be mindful not to do when we’re actually invited into the room to do our research?

Melissa Barker (22m 36s):
I would say probably the, the biggest one and the most important one that archivists really do not want to hear is, I want copies of everything for my Smith family. Or, even if it’s an unusual name, if you come in with the request that I just want copies of everything, please. It’s difficult for us to say, okay, we can do that for you. We understand you just want copies of everything, but we don’t know what that everything is. And so it’s up to the researcher to do their own homework to go about this methodically, you may have to make several trips, you may have to do a lot of it through phone calls or emails, but we need to be specific with our request to the archives because then they’ll be much abler to help you find what you’re looking for.

Melissa Barker (23m 23s):
So that is probably number one to be specific with your request. Don’t expect to find every record collection indexed. This is kind of a big one. When researchers come in and we tell, oh well we have this collection of records and the genealogist asks, well where’s the index? Or is this person in there? Many times we haven’t gotten to that collection yet to get it indexed. Indexing takes a lot of time and man hours to do. And so don’t expect the every record collection to be indexed and don’t expect every name to be in the index. For instance, court records, many of our court record indexes only include the defendant and the plaintiff.

Melissa Barker (24m 11s):
They don’t include the witnesses, they don’t include the others that were involved in the case. It only includes usually, you know, the plaintiff and the defendant. Also, one of the things, and this is more of a aesthetics thing or something when it comes to archive work, when you’re given a box of records with file folders and within those file folders or let’s say a vertical file, you get one of those as you’re looking through the documents, be mindful to just turn the page in the folder and keep things in as much as the original order as you received them. Now there may not be any rhyme or reason to the order in the file, but there may be. Archivists are very particular about how they archive records.

Melissa Barker (24m 53s):
And so if you see that there is a file folder that you’re looking at and it has several documents, just try to keep it in the same order that was in the file when you got it.

Diana (25m 3s):
Well I know that can make a difference with source citations also because if you are citing, you know, like say the third paper in the vertical file for your ancestors’ name and somebody rearranges it, then that’s going to mess up anybody who cited it like that in the past. That’s a great point. We should just keep them in order.

Melissa Barker (25m 25s):
And especially let’s say that there’s a two or three page letter in there and someone else in that has looked at it, has rearranged those pages, it makes it very difficult. And some of these letters, sometimes you can’t tell the first page from the third page because they’ve written just everywhere on the page. I’ve had some of those letters. And so keeping that in order, you know, it just helps the next researcher who comes along to do their research. And then one of the other don’ts that I like to throw in there, because to be respectful of other researchers and when you’re done with your research and you’re leaving, you know, make sure that your area’s cleaned up, you don’t leave any trash behind or things like that. And so it, that’s just for me, I like to help other researchers that come after me to use the same space that I used.

Nicole (26m 9s):
Good tip. I have a question. I know we kind of mentioned this a little bit, but when you find a document or something that you want a copy of, do you find that it’s okay in a lot of archives to take a picture of it with your phone? Or what do you think is the general guidance on that?

Melissa Barker (26m 26s):
Yeah, the general guidance on that honestly is to check before you go. That’s one of those things I’d put on that list of checking before you actually travel because each archive is truly different where one will allow you, the very next one you go to won’t, and then the next one will, and then the next three won’t. So it all depends on their policies and how they handle things. In my archive, I allow people to take photographs of documents, but the next archive they go to may be very strict and say, no, you can’t. So it’s always a good idea to know that front instead of finding it out on the spot when you’re trying to take a picture and the archivist tells you, you can’t do that.

Melissa Barker (27m 8s):
And speaking of copying things, there are still a lot of our archives that have microfilm machines and copy machines that take money or coins to get copies they have not been able or afford to update. And so make sure that you know that ahead of time and bring those rolls of quarters or dimes that you need with you to the archive so you’re prepared.

Nicole (27m 32s):
That is a really good idea. I don’t often have a lot of quarters, but that would be so disappointing to not have what you needed at the archive to copy what, what you found.

Melissa Barker (27m 42s):
All of our archives are slowly transitioning into these digital, you know, the microfilm machines that you can email you yourself the document or put it on a thumb drive, but there are still those places that just cannot afford those upgrades. And so it’s important that you find that out before you get there.

Nicole (28m 2s):
One last question that I have. So not being able to travel to the repositories that we want to, I feel is a big concern for a lot of genealogists. And I think that calling and asking the archivist to look something up for you just seems like we’re putting them out. So at what point is it okay to ask for them to help you look up something? And on the other end of that, should we be hiring a researcher to go in and do the research in the archives? Like what is kind of the guideline that you have found on that?

Melissa Barker (28m 36s):
Again, it depends on the individual archive. I find that many of our archives now are presenting their fees for actually doing research for you. So that’s again, generating revenue for them to keep their archives open, contact them, ask them, look on their website. Maybe they have guidelines there, ask them about doing research or pulling a record and sending you the copy or the record. As far as hiring researchers, I am all for that. We have researchers that come into my archives that are doing, professional genealogists, that are doing research for their clients. I would suggest that whoever you hire, it’s someone that is in the area, knows the area and you know, and talk to them about their client work, who they worked for in the past and, and see how long they’ve been doing it and kind of pick their brains about, see how knowledgeable they are.

Melissa Barker (29m 26s):
But I’m all for hiring someone in the area because you know, you want someone sometimes that have their boots on the ground that can actually go and trudge through the records for you to find what you’re looking for. But also don’t forget, you know, you can, it takes a little more effort and it takes a little more time. But if you do the email route, the phone call route, even writing letters, I actually, and I don’t tell everybody this, but I actually still write letters to one specific place and those are funeral homes. My trick with funeral homes is this, I write, I type, I don’t write, but I actually type out a letter requesting information to the funeral home.

Melissa Barker (30m 6s):
I include a self-addressed stamped envelope. What the self-addressed stamped envelope does is it almost makes them required to respond. Then we respond with, we don’t have anything or whatever. But if you send them the envelope, it’s almost like, oh, I have to answer her. And many times they’ll go ahead and copy the records. Okay, fine, I’ll send you the records. So I’ve been doing that for 29 years and I’ve only had two funeral homes tell me they will not send me, send me records because one said they were considered a private business and they wouldn’t do it. And the other one just flat out refused. They said there were, we’re too big, we don’t do that. But I’ve been contacting a lot of funeral homes that way and I have a lot of success now.

Melissa Barker (30m 47s):
A lot of these funeral homes have websites, they have emails. I still don’t do that. I still send my type letter with my self addressd stamped envelope.

Nicole (30m 56s):
I love that.

Diana (30m 57s):
That’s great. I love hearing how other people get their records. It’s so fun. I learned something from everybody and I feel like we have just learned so much from you, Melissa. It’s so great getting the insider story of these archives now. I just really wanna go visit one tomorrow.

Melissa Barker (31m 12s):
That was my goal, is to get people excited about archives and to want to go there, to want to contact them to find out what records they have. Because as a genealogist, you know, and as an archivist, one thing I say is that I think that I think all genealogists should be archivists. And I think all archivists should be genealogists because they, both of them offer so much to our research. And genealogists offer us so much to our profession. And it’s just, I think it’s a win-win all around.

Nicole (31m 46s):
Agreed. Well thank you so much Melissa. It has been a fabulous time talking about archives today. And I feel like I’ll have to listen to this episode again the next time I’m planning a visit to an archive to remember everything you said.

Diana (31m 59s):
And I just wanna give a shout out to Melissa’s website, which I am just now looking at. And we have people that ask all the time about where to, you know, all these things about how to preserve and save things. And so anybody listening and you are wondering how to preserve things, right on Melissa’s blog. She has lots of different articles about that. And so great resource for learning how to preserve, like, here’s one of these titles, Preserving Old Family Letters. And I need to look at that post ’cause I have some old family letters. So anyway, just a shout out. Go check out her website and we’ll have a link to that in the show notes.

Melissa Barker (32m 38s):
And I’ll also mention too, that I love talking with Genealogists about researching and archives and their own records preservation. And so if anyone would like to email me, I guess you, maybe you’ll put my email in the show notes. It’s Melissa Barker at hotmail.com. But email me. I usually get back with you pretty quick, but I love helping and so, and that’s what the Archive Lady is all about, is educating and trying to help.

Nicole (33m 1s):
Well great. Well Thank you so much and everybody listening, we will talk to you again next week. Have a great week.

Diana (33m 7s):
All right, bye-bye everyone.

Nicole (33m 39s):
Thank you for listening to Research Like a Pro with Diana Elder, accredited genealogy professional and Nicole Dyer. We hope that something you heard today will help you make progress in your own genealogy research. If you like what you heard, please leave us a review on iTunes or Stitcher or visit our website, FamilyLocket.com to contact us. You can find our book Research Like a Pro a Genealogist’s Guide on Amazon.com and other booksellers. We hope you’ll start now to Research Like a Pro.