While ostensibly a genealogical collection detailing Ellen Landers’s ancestry going back more than 6 generations, the Ellen Landers Collection also offers valuable insight into topics such as the interstate slave trade, antebellum politics in Georgia, the 1856 Democratic National Convention, secession, and 1880s courtship etiquette. The majority of historical documents are correspondence to and from family and friends, but there are also bills and receipts, dance invitations, and one month of an 1852 diary. As an added convenience, Landers typed transcriptions for the majority of the correspondence. Genealogical materials include family trees, pedigree charts, obituaries, newspaper clippings and 90 family photographs. Geographically, the majority of documents pertain to Rusk, Smith and Wood Counties, Texas and Upson County, Georgia.