Edward, I love the old handwriting--particularly the use of the letter "f" to indicate double "s". For example, the word "possessed" would be written as "pofsefsed". The Archives does take some steps to help further deterioration of documents. They have various-sized Mylar envelopes to further protect when a particularly tattered one is found. Users also have the option of writing a report of a particularly fragile document and request the preservation staff to inspect it. Alice J. Gayley Pennsylvania in the Civil War http://www.pa-roots.com/~pacw/ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Edward Harding" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, March 07, 2006 4:09 PM Subject: Re: [CIVIL-WAR] City Point Hospital Records > Alice, > > You are so very right about the condition of so many valuable papers that are almost 150 years old. Even some of the "newer ones" are even brittle and hard to read. I guess the best example I know of are my GG Grandfather's memoirs which are now protected in the Special Manuscript Department at Joyner Library, East Carolina University, in Greenville, NC. Before his death in 1890, my GG Grandfather who was of English and German heritage wrote his life's memoirs. I have a copy of them that the library got for me so I could read them and also transcribe the portion about his service in the Confederate army. Besides the condition of the paper and ink, it's also sometimes pretty hard to read handwriting from back then due to the old way people used to write. I was lucky and pretty much got everything transcribed with the exception of where a page was torn or where the writing was way too light to be able to read. It's a shame more of these old original documents aren't bei! > ng protected to keep them from deteriorating anymore than they already have over the years. If anyone is interested, there's a link online from Joyner Library giving a fair amount of information that's found in my GG Grandfather's memoirs. He was William H. von Eberstein. > http://digital.lib.ecu.edu/special/ead/findingaids/0148/ > > Edward > > > ==== CIVIL-WAR Mailing List ==== > To unsubscribe from list mode, email [email protected] > and in the text area of the message, type only the word > unsubscribe > >