How would you go about verifying events depicted in letters and diaries written by family member

Verifying events depicted in letters and diaries written by a family member is like detective work. Like Sherlock Holmes the writer looks for leads and deduces from information she or he had collected. 

How we come to understand reality is much closer to storytelling than didactic record keeping . Letters and diaries are personal in nature, which means that there are limitations to the accuracy of the contents because of memory, perspective and etcetera.

The events written in letters and diaries can be verified when there is something that it can hold itself against. Having it allows me to suggest, this happened because it says here on the official record, or he was there at the event and here are the photos to prove it.

It requires effort from the writer to walk away from his desk and travel to places, take time to flip pages and may even not yield any results. It is nonetheless necessary to do it in order to avoid lazy mistakes.

Having said that, the story of James Cook with regards to the aborigines shows that history is not always a linear construction. As Healy notes in his article on the subject, history can be culturally peculiar and specific (n.d). Inaccuracies may not be in the letters of diaries but oversight made in record entry, or even how things had been written and accepted all this while.

The pursuit of verifying events is not only to gives more credibility to the story but also how it could lead to discovery of new details.

In my own investigation, I have kept in mind that not everything is directly recorded or have a picture to explain things. Connecting elements of stories also requires use of imagination in recreating events.

For my major assignment, I had written:

The smell of turmeric, garam marsala, chili powder and other spices sharply pierced into young Murshidi’s nose as he navigates his way through the crowded walkway. After a sharp left turn, the atmosphere became suddenly still as his steps echoes along the narrow corridor leading to the Madrasah. His lips continue to move inaudibly, reciting his homework, the sura Al Buruj. He is all too mindful of the Sheikh’s rattan stick.

There is no way for sure that I know that this is how it happened with Murshidi in the 1890s Kuching. Based on information I gathered like how what the Indian Muslim trade at that time, the location of Murshidi’s house being close to the madrasah and my own experience walking around the place, I had used it to fictionally reconstruct the story.

How faithful it is to reality, I can’t say for sure, but I think the reader could acknowledge where I had applied some creative license and which are facts.