08/28/2025
This article was in the September/October issue of Familytree magazine.
I was intrigued after reading it and logged on to Newspapers.com to see what I could find. (Newspapers.com is a subscription site, but you can use it for free at the Family Search Center as well as other newspapers websites).
Sometimes when you go searching for information you come up empty handed. This was not the case for me this week, I found so many interesting, informative and fun things about my family that I had to make myself stop!
Some things I found were:
Deeds and property transfers, these listed the locations of the property, and the names of the family member involved, as well as the names of the people involved in the transactions.
Criminal and court notices, I found out one of my great grandfathers was arrested for using profanity in the street and another received a $5 fine for a traffic violation. Along with these, the locations that they happened in were good for finding out where they were living at the time.
Funeral and death, notices, Official death List, Obituaries. These were great for exact dates and locations. They also gave information on other family members, their relationship to the deceased and where they live now. Also, the location of the funeral and burial information.
I found a divorce creed for one of my great grandfathers for a wife I didn’t even know he had!!
Local social pages mentioned things like events they attended, if they’d been ill, if they traveled or had visitors, etc. these were great for building time lines and finding the names, and where other family members lived as well as their relationships.
Birth and wedding announcements, full of information like names, dates, relationships and the residences of family members.
I love being able to fill in the blanks between census reports, a lot can happen in 10 years!
We will delve more into newspaper research at one of our meetings early in the next year, I hope you’ll join us.
