Are you utilizing newspaper articles and obituaries to find your ancestors? I remember when I was younger my grandma read the newspaper front to back, and then she would cut out any articles, obituaries, pictures she wanted to keep for her posterity. Of course I had no clue what that meant, but I knew she had a lot of clippings for whoever that posterity was. I am grateful that she did that, but I am even more grateful that I can now get online and find newspapers! Especially given that in many cases I did not know where ancestors had lived so finding articles or obituaries has opened many doors and expanded our family trees. Newspaper articles used to tell you all kinds of information. It seemed like a person's life story sometimes. Which actually helped me with the people I am going to discuss today. And hopefully will help you too.
My family on my mom’s paternal side has always been an enigma to me. Lots of names and little to no information. I made assumptions on where they may have been born and on a couple, even where they died. So it was great to run into an article about my Great - Granduncle Joseph Fitzsimmons. I finally know when and where he was born, places the family lived, when he had moved away and to where, that a sister went with him, where he was buried and the address where my Great Grandfather lived. One article helped me to find birth records, land records and helped find a path of where my family lived over the years.
Most of my life I knew I had German ancestry on my Grandfather’s side of the family. He had told stories about how his grandfather spoke German but he was a baby when his grandmother died. I knew one of her brother's names but I could not find parents, any more siblings, birthday and birthplace. From this one article I was able to input the information and find her parents and more siblings, and where she was born. Finding this information added about 300+ more ancestors to my tree.
Finally, my 2x Great Grandmother Ann McDevitt was also a mystery. I could never find parents, siblings, and I was not sure where she was born. I knew she was a lot younger than her husband, because of the 1900 census she had 5 children but only 4 lived, and that the year she died on her tombstone was not correct. I found an article in the newspaper with the correct date. But what really opened up the flood of information was an article that popped up after I put in the new information I had found on her son Joseph. This one article gave me the name of her brother William McDevitt and how he had a nephew Joseph Fitzsimmons, a nephew James Mullady and a “niece” Mary Jane Fleming from Sheckling, Wisconsin. From these new names I ended up finding Ann McDevitt had 3 brothers and 3 sisters one of which was Mary Jane Fleming and found out Ann’s parents names. This article helped me add over 1000 names to my tree. I even found a probate record of the mother with the children’s names and the married names of the daughters to solidify my information was correct.
If you cannot afford a newspapers.com subscription I recommend going to a library where they have a subscription and you can use it there. While the information is not always correct there is usually enough information to help you find things you knew nothing about. These are only a few of the people in my family tree that newspaper articles or newspapers helped me to find even more of my ancestors.. And with more ancestors you get more of your family’s story that you can keep alive and pass down to future generations.
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