Sample Letter to Parish Clerk.

Parish Clerk of Old South Church,

Boston, Mass.

Dear Sir:

My second great-grandfather, who married

of Cambridge,

was a worshiper in your church in 1721. He went from Boston to Barrington, N. H., in 1720-22, was one of the original proprietors of that town, but in all Barrington deeds he speaks of himself as "of Boston." His children were

who

later, probably in 1730, moved

to Hopkinton, Mass. with his friend..

of the Old North Church, Boston, taking his wife and two children with him.

Died in Hopkinton in 1749. Can you give any further information from your records? I want date of .birth, parents' name and other

data. Also birth dates of children....... and and wish to know if there were other children. Will pay regular rate for searching records.

I enclose stamps for reply.

Thanking you in advance, I am

Yours truly,

Give the full name of the person whose record you wish searched for.

Give dates of birth, marriage or death of the person, if you have them.

Give place of birth, places of residence of self, or the person desired.

Where possible, add the names and dates of family members, if you desire information concerning their parents.

When writing to non-"Mormon" church officials, or relatives, it is always better to enclose a blank such

as we furnish in this office. In any letters of inquiry observe the following:

Give your own full name-never initials.

Cross Reference.

As you proceed with your work you will discover as in recording the personal history that "Identification information" can be readily located by referring to a certain page and line in the letter written or received. The same method of putting in the record book genealogical data thus gathered is employed as explained in the chapter entitled "Family Record, Including Family History-Journal." Read the following instructions for filing correspondence and combine with instructions for cross-reference in order to care for information received through letter writing.

To File Correspondence.

After all of the information has been taken out of a letter and cross referenced to the family group and personal index, it is ready for filing. This is true of both the carbon copy and the letter received from the correspondent. In order to be able to file correspondence so that it can be quickly referred to, it is necessary to have all of the letters that have been written to or received from each individual in one place, fastened together permanently. This is accomplished by pasting a small portion of the upper left-hand corner of each page to the other correspondence.

For example, a letter of three pages is written to "Uncle Henry." His name is Henry Smith. For purposes of illustration, we will assume that Uncle Henry is the first person to whom we have written, and that we have not yet received a letter from any other person. A carbon copy of the letter to Uncle Henry is numbered in the upper right-hand corner, "1", "2", "3", the same as a book is paged, and these sheets are securely fastened in the upper left-hand corner with mucilage. (Use only enough surface in sticking the sheets together to per

manently fasten them. Too much mucilage is worse than too little.)

To file the letters away it is necessary to have a receptacle capable of receiving a sheet 81⁄2 inches wide by 11 inches long, opened up, so that it can lay flat, without creasing. This should really be a tin box, with a cover to exclude dust so that in case of fire the important and valuable correspondence may not be destroyed.

Refer again to instructions on cross reference. The page and line in the book should be duplicated in the correspondence. That is, each letter should be paged, and the line should be numbered, so that the reference numbers can be given in each case. Therefore, as Uncle Henry is the first one to receive a letter, his number is "1", and the first page of his letter is also "1", so that information contained on the first page of his letter would be referenced "1-1", meaning the first person to whom we write to receive a letter and the first page of that letter. Then if the lines are numbered and the item is on line 26, the reference would be "1-1-26".

In order to keep track of the people to whom we write or from whom we receive letters it is necessary to have a card index of the correspondents arranged alphabetically in a small card file; or for those who are used to it, a small index in a book will do; so that the names can be alphabetically arranged and the numbers to the correspondence properly given.

The full name and address of Uncle Henry Smith is given on the card, at the upper left-hand corner, as follows: Uncle Henry's name is Henry Smith; his address is 127 Washington St., Baltimore, Md. This is given as follows: Smith, Henry, and the whole street and city address underneath, surname first for index purposes; and his card is filed alphabetically under the letter "S" in the alphabetical index.

Our next letter is to "Cousin William Jones". He is the second person to whom we have written. Consequently, this letter will be numbered “2”, and his name is put on a card and filed under the "J's", and his cor

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respondence, securely fastened together, is laid on the top of the correspondence of Uncle Henry, who is No. 1. On their respective cards you put: No. 1 and No. 2 opposite their names and also the number of the book, page and line where they appear as individuals in your family history. This process is continued always, giving each new correspondent the next number from the last one appearing on the top of your pile. When a box is filled with letters, secure another box, take half from the top, and put it into the second box, leaving room for each of them to grow. In the course of time a letter is received from Uncle Henry, and his name being Henry Smith we immediately look in the alphabetical index and find his name, giving his correspondence number as “1”. This refers us back to the first pile in the correspondence box, and we can then lift off the other correspondence, take out the letter we have written to him, securely fasten his letter that he has written to us to it, and it is then ready for filing. If Uncle Henry's letter is three pages long, it would be numbered "4", "5" and "6", and our reply would be "7", "8", "9" and "10", etc. This process is continued so long as letters are written to and received from any given individual, and by carefully following this method of paging the correspondence, securely fastening it, and arranging the card index in alphabetical order, either in a card index file or an index book, the correspondence of any person can grow from one sheet and one person who is writing, to an indefinite number of sheets and an indefinite number of persons.

CHAPTER 23

METHODS USED IN ARRANGING RECORDS IN TEMPLE RECORD BOOK

This chapter illustrates and explains many of the principles and rules contained in this book.

Method of Arranging the Names.

Whatever method is used in gathering the names and getting them in orderly arrangement, they must finally be placed in some permanent form for the use of the family doing temple work for them. This form should be as simple and as convenient as possible. Genealogists have many and varied forms, all of which contain more or less merit; but it will be evident that for the purpose of the Latter-day Saints and their vicarious work a uniform system should be adopted. Uniformity in this matter of genealogy and the recording of temple work is greatly to be desired, to the end that the records which are handed from parents to children or from one record keeper to another may easily be understood and the work intelligently continued.

The Standard System.

The system of recording in a Temple Record adopted by the Genealogical Society of Utah and recommended by the Temple authorities is what is generally known as the Standard System of arranging genealogy. It is the method used by the leading genealogical societies and publishing firms in this country. In this chapter we will explain this standard method of arranging a pedigree and use a simple illustration to make it plain.

In developing these lessons, it is well to place the blank form on the blackboard, and fill in the various items as the lesson proceeds. Space will not permit of detailed illustration here.

The main principles underlying this Standard Sys