The Sibling Postcard Exercise

This dataset is the written text of 'postcards' submitted to researchers at the Open University and London South Bank University by the public as part of an annual week-long Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) 'Festival of Social Science' public engagement series of events. The postcard exercise ran from 7-16 March 2008, where people were invited to write about their sisters and brothers. They could either complete an electronic postcard via a website (advertised through leaflets, email lists, chat groups, on the research team's email signatures), or a paper postcard at displays in offices, schools, public libraries, care homes and voluntary organisations.

Both the hard copy and online versions of the postcard had three entry fields: tickbox gender, dates of birth and death, and a free text box where participants could describe anything they wished about their siblings / sibling relationships. 795 postcard responses were received from both children and adults from across the UK, two-thirds of them via the online portal.

Participant characteristics:

• Gender: female 648; male 141; gender not provided 6
• Age: 3-28 yrs 240; 29-58 yrs 438; 58-87 yrs 105; 88-108 yrs 5; age not provided 7
• Ethnicity: 6% self-reported minority or non-UK ethnicity

The copies of all the electronic and hard copy postcards have been transcribed verbatim and lightly anonymised. The participants consented to future research, with the text inviting participation stating:

'We will anonymise your emails and place them in an Archive to be used for research and educational purposes ... in emailing us you are assigning copyright to the researchers as part of The Sibling Postcard research project'

• Title: The Sibling Postcard Exercise
• Data Creators: Bill Bytheway, Susie Weller, Joanna Bornat and Rosalind Edwards
• Dataset Publisher: University of Leeds, UK: Timescapes Archive
• Published Date: 2026.
• DOI: 10.23635/17

Dataset Citation

Bill Bytheway, Susie Weller, Joanna Bornat, Rosalind Edwards (2026): The Sibling Postcard Exercise. University of Leeds: Timescapes Archive. DOI: 10.23635/17

Related Projects

• Siblings and Friends (project page)
• Siblings and Friends (dataset)
• The Oldest Generation (project page)
• The Oldest Generation (dataset)

The Sibling Postcard Exercise. [Case]