Finding Needles in Haystacks
1929 portrait of a second grade class at Jewish People’s Schools, ID: PR017982
If you are doing genealogical research in an archives, this may be a common scenario: You’re looking for a family member, Mr. Lastname, who was a member of a number of community organizations, yet his name does not come up in any searches. It’s frustrating. How can this be?
A community archives preserves a constant influx of materials from institutions, private families, and public figures. There are a few reasons why someone may be hard to find:
The descriptions we provide to the public rely heavily on the descriptions given by the donor. For example, if donated photographs are labeled on the back, that is information that we can relay to our researchers. If folders are organized by name, this is information we can relay. If Mr. Lastname has not been identified in the original materials, and if we do not have related materials that help us identify him, he may go unnamed.
A researcher has not yet conducted an in-depth search that could help identify Mr. Lastname. Community archives are collective endeavours. Every time the records are accessed or used, there is an opportunity for someone to identify more details, relay them to us, and enrich the description then available for others.
In some cases, materials have been donated, but they have not yet been described and made available to the public. Most archives have a backlog of materials awaiting processing. It is sometimes the case that Mr. Lastname is noted in a collection that has yet to be made accessible.
Of course, we do a fair share of deductive reasoning and investigation, but we cannot do it alone. Having the public help identify materials is an invaluable tool for a community archives.
For this school photo, we spied schoolteacher Shimshon Dunsky, grandfather of future JPL Director Zipporah Dunsky!
