Dear Santa…
Finding Family in Old Holiday Letters Every December in the late 1800s, newspapers across America printed pages of “Dear Santa” letters—tiny time capsules written in crooked handwriting, full of wish lists, hopes, and sometimes heartbreak. For genealogists, these little notes are far more than Christmas nostalgia. They’re unexpected sources of family history. In one 1895 issue from Snow Hill, Maryland, the editor regretfully explains that some children’s letters arrived too late to print. You can feel the sting of disappointment…