Spirit of the Ages newspaper March 9, 1901
I decided to approach my newspaper research a little differently this week. I usually plug in a name and a State and then browse through all those papers that come up even though they are not near my family's usual residence. Example, Bennington, Vermont is no where near where my Merrill line lived but they did have a newspaper that the usual search of Merrill in Vermont would bring up.
This week I decided to pick a newspaper that I knew was from near where my Merrill line lived during the late 1800-1920 time frame. I chose the Spirit of the Ages newspaper because if came from Woodstock and my family lived in Hartland, Reading, West Woodstock, Pomfret and a few other little towns near there. So I entered the name of the newspaper, then Reading, Merrill, as my search criteria.
Up popped a huge list of that combination. I spent over 4 days perusing all these listings and found 127 articles that named my Merril line! It was so exciting to find my great-great-grandfather's obituary with all the children and siblings listed. Also to see little tidbits of my great-great-grandmother's travels over the area visiting her children. The three big articles about my great-uncle Hollis's cows being poisoned with the court information included. Even the sad stories of losses and sicknesses. My great-grandfather's purchase of a new horse. Or the funny story of the new sewer line being extended to my cousin's street.
Newspapers are filled with little tidbits of information that can add so much to our family story. I found two cousins from the 1900-1920 time frame that had several little articles about them. Both of them died young, so I decided to find the death certificates online at Ancestry for them. The one Hazel, was really close to my grandmother. They were both born in the late 1800's and grew up in the same town. My grandmother spoke of her often. She died at age 22. When I found the death certificate, I was astonished to find she committed suicide by shooting herself! She had only been married 2 years. I sat here and felt sorrow as if I knew her and had just learned of her death. Those newspaper articles about her showed a different story than a life so sad she would take her own life. The other cousin was in the newspapers a lot as she was a teacher and each time she came from the academy where she taught, they would tell of her visit home. She died at age 36. She married at age 30, which for the early 1900's was old. She died with an ectopic pregnancy. Again, I felt as if I had just learned of the death of a friend. Reading about their lives through these newspaper articles had made them come alive.
In order to document my finding's I opened two screens, my Family Tree Maker program and the actual article. I made a source file then added each article as a citation. Because I was using the same source each time, it was much easier to document it. If you have multiple monitors it would be even easier.
I had the information details on from the articles and could just transcribe it into the Family Tree Maker program. This would work with whatever program you use.
In one week I as able to add dimension and depth to my family story. Those little tidbits make it more interesting and makes the people who were just names in my family database become my friends too.
Spirit of the Age Newspaper (Woodstock, VT, Spirit of the Age), www.newspapers.com, December 5, 1903; page 2
The reason I have my Family Tree Maker program opened at the same time as I am searching the newspapers is to verify the family connections. I knew when I read the above article that Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Brown were Emma Merrill's parents, I knew the names Verna, Hilda, Harlan, Thelma and Reba were their children.
I wish you many happy hours browsing the old newspapers found online and in libraries.
For a list of more newspapers found on the internet, here is a link to my toolbox for newspaper sites:
