COLLECTING ALBUMS

COLLECTING & EXPLORING

OLD ALBUMS

Collecting these vintage books started for author Graham Stubbs by accident. Researching his own family history was temporarily stalled. A little booklet partly hidden on a shelf in an antique shop attracted his attention. The first page was decorated with a brightly colored lithograph of seashells and coral, with the single word “ALBUM.” The handwriting throughout the album was beautiful, with inscriptions dedicated to the album’s owner by friends and relatives.

Here was the opportunity to use familiar family history tools to explore someone else’s genealogy. A name and a date and a place were all that were necessary to commence. He purchased the album and started the process. The dates of the entries in the little book were in no particular sequence of dates, but when they were re-ordered chronologically, they told the story of a young woman before and after her wedding in rural Minnesota of the 1880s. Once a couple more of these little books were, acquired and examined, he was hooked on collecting and researching old autograph albums.

The idea was irresistible that that it was possible pinpoint the exact place and date when, a hundred or more years earlier, someone held in their hands an album and wrote a greeting and their own name. Many of the books yielded information and anecdotes about their original owners, the people who left messages, and the places and periods. The accumulation of books expanded and a remarkable variety of narratives of people’s lives accrued, prompting the notion of preparing for publication one or more books through which to share these stories.

To the reader is offered the hope that they may enjoy this way of connecting with people whose inscriptions in autograph albums provide windows to events and places in American history. To family historians it is suggested that this way of exploring the genealogy of other people can be a lot of fun!