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Charlie Bass, Corpus Christi, Texas: In 1977, when I was ten, my father got a call at our home in Baton Rouge, asking if he was related to John Henry Bass. He replied that John Henry Bass was his great-grandfather. The woman calling said she lived in J.H. Bass's house in Terrell, Texas, and that she’d found a diary he had kept while working as a surgeon for the Confederacy during the Civil War. That weekend we drove to Terrell to collect the diary—a six-hour trip each way! I then spent hours in the library researching the entries and deciphering the handwriting. Among many other topics, J.H. Bass wrote about being shot during the Battle of Atlanta. The diary piqued my interest in family history, which has continued for over 40 years. The diary is now on loan to the McWhiney Foundation at McMurry University in Abilene, Texas, where Dr. Bass moved after the war and began a medical practice and pharmacy.

Pat Conrad, Plymouth, Indiana: My father’s World War II diary allowed me to see a side of him that I never knew. One entry describes him roller skating while on a pass from boot camp and meeting my mother for the first time.

Steve Althoen, Dexter, Michigan: My wife’s great-aunt, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Martens Runland, kept a diary of her trip to Germany with her sister Marie. When they left Illinois on June 15, 1914, they didn’t know that World War I would break out on July 28, and they would be stranded and then employed making pickle helmet covers until they could find passage back home in October. I edited the diary, adding footnotes, photos, and German translations. I also included a 32-page booklet from the S. S. President Grant dated June 18, 1914, which contained a list of passengers. I donated an electronic copy of my 68-page edited version of the diary to the Max Kade Institute for German-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Frances Taylor, San Francisco, California: My great-grandmother Elizabeth Gurney Taylor (1840-1913) began keeping a journal when she was 16. Her journals, along with many family letters and her husband's sermons, are in the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Elizabeth refers to her grandfather, aunt, and cousin by name in her journal. I used Elizabeth’s journals to prove the name of her paternal grandfather—and, thus, my Mayflower line from William Bradford. I believe no other records contain this information.

Deborah S. Bussert, Williamsburg, Virginia: My ancestor George Booth (1820-1896) kept a diary that described his courtship of his first wife Hannah Lomax (1824-1845), their 1844 marriage, and their subsequent harrowing journey from Liverpool to New York City during which their ship, Remittance, nearly sank. After the ship returned to Liverpool, George remained there sorting out the damage to their belongings and Hannah returned to her family in Bolton, Lancashire. He nearly despaired of her returning, but she arrived in time to set sail again. George wrote with great feeling about Hannah's death in August 1845, followed shortly by the deaths of their newborn and George's mother. Much of the diary is devoted to recounting conversations in which Hannah told George about her fears of childbirth and her hope that if she died, he would remarry and have a large and loving family. He also described dreams in which she introduced him to the woman who would become his second wife, Nancy Prest (1823-1893), the mother of his five children.