Ancestors may be mentioned in Other's correspondence

In today's (Aug. 17, 2008) Heritage Hunting by Sharon Tate Moody (weekly feature in the Tampa Tribune) the article is Letters From Others May Mention Ancestors. She is pointing out that mention and stories of an ancestor can be in the letters of a relative, friend, official, or fellow soldier. She provides some tips at where to look.

I would like to ask for you to share information about caches of correspondences that mention our Sanchez kinfolk.

I will start with some collections that I have found:

• The Joseph S. Sanchez collection [boxes] in the St. Augustine Historical Society - Research Library. There is correspondence from form numerous relatives (brother, sister, nephews, and others). One example is a letter from his nephew, George W. Sanchez, who writes his uncle about the death and burial of John M. Sanchez, Joseph's brother.
• The Sanchez Family Papers in the P.K. Yonge Library of Florida History at the University of Florida in Gainesville has a lot of correspondence that Edward Carrington Francis Sanchez collected. His brothers were involved in businesses in Cuba.
• The book, Zéspedes in East Florida, 1784-1790 by Helen Hornbeck Tanner, is a collection of translated letters that include mention Francisco Xavier Sanchez and include one of his. Many of the large libraries in Florida have copies of this book.
• The probate files for Francis Roman Sanchez have a few letters. You will have to go to the Alachua County courthouse to see them. His probate file is large. Probate files are very informative. John M. Sanchez' probate file is at the court house too. It is unfortunate that in Florida, these old files are considered sensitive-data by the Florida Supreme Court.

If there are enough collections of correspondence reported, they can be added to something like the bibliography.

We have contributors and readers from cousins in different parts of the family tree. It would be good to hear from you. Anyone can add comments, just click "comments" on the next line.

Site to check out

I received 59 hits by searching for Sanchez on this Florida Heritage Collection site and 3 look interesting to me. The document called, "Petals Plucked from Sunny Climes," has F. R. Sanchez basically declaring war on the Seminoles after the Indian kill 3 people that happen to be have surnames I'm related to like Dell and O'Steen. One document is about Fort Diego and another about the purchase of Florida may be of interest. One claim I saw several years ago said West Sheffield had in his possession a deed of Florida and if this is true it probably came from the Sanchez line because the Sanchez family was much more prominent i that period of time. The deed is supposed to be in Starke. Warren Sanchez has several letters in the site's collection, as well. Some of you may recognize Sanchez's I'm not familiar with if you do a site search.
http://susdl.fcla.edu/fh/