Photographs or sketches of people and events in the manuscript or in the life of the author of the manuscript or in the family history all help give you and your reader a sense of who the major characters are in this edition and where events took place. That may depend on the nature of the manuscript you have in front of you. Some private lives are lived in very public ways or in very public contexts. How successful you will be in your hunt for background information will depend on the prominence of your subjects and of the events in their lives as well as on how determined a detective you are. Happily, research into family, local, and regional history has a broad base of resources, beginning with the evidence in your own household or family records and in your regional historical society and public library and extending out through county, state and national resources.
Many counties also have atlases and plat books that identify ownership of land.
These are readily available in college and public libraries. During the Depression and later chapters of the DAR went through newspapers, public records, and cemeteries compiling catalogues of information about birth, death, marriage, and land ownership. Many of these hand-typed and mimeographed records are available in genealogical libraries. The Church of the Latter Day Saints has also compiled a vast library of genealogical material, including copies of community histories, family histories, and DAR materials that is available on microfilm and microfiche at research libraries. Part of my family comes from Otsego County, New York, and I have found whole sections of Roots, Donaldsons, Lathrops, and Rosses in Gilbertsville and Cooperstown cemeteries.