archive trouble

Oh boy. On Friday I went to the archives, as planned. Unfortunately, when I got there, they had nothing for me. They showed me some documents from the 1940s and 1950s. They complained that they needed money to do the search. I told them that I didn't want to give them any unless I knew that this stuff actually existed in the country. After some negotiating, we came to a compromise: I would pay them the fee to search for 4 documents and I would come back on Monday afternoon to see those 4 documents. If they existed I'd pay the rest of the fee, and if they didn't, then....well....not really sure. Here's the thing though: they were looking at typed looseleaf documents, at which point I realized that they don't even know what they're looking for. Of course it's taking them awhile: the typewriter wasn't even invented during the 1820s-1840s! So I had to tell them I only wanted handwritten documents, usually found in bound volumes. Fingers crossed that tomorrow is more successful.....