Posted in the Past, Second Delivery

by Helen Baggott

Many of us will have a few family postcards in our family history collection, with their hastily scribbled messages sending best wishes from places near and far. If we’re lucky, we know exactly who the sender and recipient were. But when postcards are seen out of context, separated from the people who owned them, the story behind their message might seem impossible to unravel.

In Posted in the Past: Second Delivery, author Helen Baggott follows the successful premise of her first postcard volume – taking a postcard, looking at who received it and then trying to work out who sent it and the story behind it. These fascinating tales are solidly rooted in family history research, as Helen has created a private Ancestry tree for each postcard featured, and readers can contact her for details of any of these. Using records such as the census, street directories and newspapers, she has cleverly used genealogy detective work to transform a few words on a postcard into some surprisingly detailed – and often poignant – stories.

What struck me most from these tales was just how mobile our ancestors were. Whether sending a jolly message from a seaside jaunt or words of reassurance from emigrants to those left behind, these stories are a true snapshot of the golden age of the postcard.

• Published by Stourcastle Books www.helenbaggott.co.uk at £9.99 (paperback), ISBN 9781916107014 RB