Registers of Letters Received
setName: label: See more items in
content: Records of the Superintendent of Education for the District of Columbia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865–1872
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: National Museum of African American History and Culture
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NMAAHC.FB.M1056, Series 4
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: In accordance with 19th–century recordkeeping practices, incoming communications were entered in registers of letters received. Entries in the registers include such information as the name of office of the correspondent, where the letter was written and when received, an abstract of the letter, and the entry number assigned to the letter. Entries in the two volumes of registers of letters received, January 1868–September 1870, are arranged by time period, thereunder alphabetically by the initial letter of the correspondent's surname or office, and thereunder chronologically by date of receipt. The NARS staff prepared name indexes to both registers. Within the alphabetical headings, entries frequently are not in strict chronological order. Often the space allocated for a particular alphabetical heading was insufficient, and entries were continued elsewhere in the volume. NARS, however, has filmed the entries in the proper order. Within alphabetical headings, some numbers were duplicated in the registers. In such instances, the NARS staff added the annotations "[No. 1]" and "[No. 2]" adjacent to the entry number for purposes of distinction. In a few instances, a single letter was entered twice in the register. These duplicate entries are cross–referenced to each other with "See" notations. 

A number of documents entered in the registers are no longer to be found among the registered letter received. Letters were often referred to staff personnel or to other individuals or returned to the sender. An asterisk following an entry number indicates that the corresponding letters is among the letters received. The registers contain frequent cross–references to related correspondence series, using the same symbols as found in the fair copy letter books. There are several cross-references in the second register to a press copy book "F," but this volume does not appear to be among the extant records of the Superintendent of Education for the District of Columbia.