About Diary File - Diary File

Diary File discovers, researches, and posts fascinating, historical content from antique diaries and journals. Our ancestors recorded their daily lives in their diaries. Some experienced extraordinary times and circumstances, others lived ordinary lives. We help them tell their stories to present and future generations.

We believe that historical diaries and letters help to humanize the past. When you read the diary of someone who lived one hundred fifty years ago, you realize that the writer wasn’t much different than you. Their surroundings may have been different than your own, but their heart and mind was the same.

The diaries and journals posted on our website are meant for educational purposes and research.

Diary File is run by individuals with a keen interest in preserving the past. Our contributors come from all over the world, but the site is edited from Australia. Our mission is to digitize, research, and disseminate as many of the world’s historical diaries as we can. Some of the diaries are published and available for a nominal fee, with proceeds helping to digitize more historical diaries.

Historical diaries/journals can generally be classed into two categories. In the first, the diarist records the events of his/her life. In the second, the diarist records his/her thoughts (usually in addition to events). The second type is often more interesting to read and provides more insight into the life and times of the diarist. As such, we prefer to publish this type of diary, but there is also plenty of value in the first type, so we publish both.

Many of the diaries on our website have been discovered by our team through various online and offline sources. Others have been discovered and submitted to us by readers like yourself – thank you!

Important Notes:

The content of this website is copyrighted. Portions of this website may be quoted without permission, as long as proper credit is given with a link back to the original source on our website. For use of more substantial portions of the works on this website, please contact us with a project brief.

Affiliate Disclosure

Diary File a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.