Ancestors in 52 Weeks - In the Paper and how to use Newspapers

This year's challenge is 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks and is run by Amy Johnson Crow.

The brief for this topic:
Have you used newspapers in your research?

I have used many things for my research including newspapers. You never know what you'll find with them. In fact, sometimes I could put a story together by looking up history for towns and countries in which my ancestors had come from to put "some flesh on the bone" of those ancestors. 

I've had questions come up because of lookign up history information. This lead me to reading text books and websites on certain countries, wars, customs, and what else had been going on in the world at that time.

In fact, when I have time to do timelines for my ancestors, I put what is going on at times to where they are in the world so you get the feel of what they are experiencing and sometimes it answers questions or gives you the thought of "They could have done this because of that, or that...." and let's others draw their conclusions.

I will give you an examples below.

Use what you know

I knew my mother's birth name and my grandmother's name, after all, my middle name is my grandmother's first! This lead me to searching for the name of Janet Gauquie.

Other facts I knew was my mother grew up around Newburgh, New York and my grandmother's sister was named Aunt Honey or Genevieve, but I didn't have a maiden name for either of them. Mom wouldn't list her father's name either and he was dead.

Newspapers...Which ones?

This lead me to plugging in the name and area into the many newspapers websites. You have the newspapers.com (need to pay), Elephind, HRVH Historical Newspapers, Library of Congress, Old Fulton New York Newspapers, Trove - and that's just a few of them that are out there and most of these are free.

I started to find the name Gauquie in many of the newspapers when I used the Old Fulton website.

Look at all the Gauquie names! Then there's the Joanne Gauquie which is my mother! Credit

When I saw my mother's name in there, and I knew one of her brother's names I was shocked. Now I had more family names I could work with. I went almost word by word and made a handwritten tree out of the information in the newspaper article. I knew it was my family too because its was in the right area of New York.

From this I was able to track down information on my grandparents and the rest of the family.

But what if I don't have the money??

This is always something people are saying in regarding to doing searches for family. I admit I'm a cheapskate and don't like paying for things. However, sometimes you need to, but other times you don't.

I've done enough searching and talking to others using things like Facebook, where I got to know where there are free websites for newspapers online. I listed a handful of free newspapers sites above the article.

Also, be aware when there are holidays or something of importance like an anniversary, then most websites (Ancestry and My Heritage to name a few) have free weekends where you can get on their websites and until a certain date and time you can search for things for free. This is how I've gotten most of my information.

Eventually I was able to track down my great grandmother's obituary using my grandmother's name.
It's the correct person due to my grandmother's name, her sister's name AND the location I knew they were at.

Credit as above.

Use your new finds in searches in Newspapers

Now I had the name of my great grandmother and a spelling of her married name, my grandmother's maiden name along with many other names and places. Obituaries, if written correctly, are one of the most fact given hints you can get really. However, keep in mind the information, like many of the documents you get, are only as good as the informant.

For instance, I found my material great grandfather Jules Gauquie's obituary and probate online. By this point, I found my mother's cousin and asked her about the probate. To paraphrase her, she said you can read it but that's not what happened. Jules wanted it written this way so it made him look good even in death. In reality, the family basically got nothing but the farm which Jules sold to his sons before his death.

Did I find the information? You bet I did.

Jules' obituary. Credit as above.

Jules' Probate. Credit as above.

Once again, the information that are in these are as good as the person writing the article or report it to the newspaper.

What other things can I find out about in the newspapers which might be handy?

You will need to look at the information available to you about who you are researching and why. Were you able to get a Ship Manifest and you want to know about where the area is they put on it? If so, there's usually towns and countries listed there. For instance, my paternal grandmother came from Poland as well. When I found her ship manifest, it said Malkinia and she's always said they came from Warsaw. I looked for an area around there. Then I remembered when I was young, she named two rivers when she was playing with her cousins. One of these was named Bug and I remembered that because the name was so unusual. These two pieces of paperwork put me in the area I could research. Years later, I finally got her naturalization paperwork (after I was thinking she didn't have to get naturalized which I was correct in thinking, but she did it anyway) I found I was correct in the area but it was next town over.

**Tip**
Also, I when you save or clip the newspaper article, I would put the newspaper information on it (as you can see by the newer clips I've found) and copy and paste the address into the file properties in comment area (right click on the file, go to properties, click on comments and paste the address into the field then click ok to close window).  This will be handy for citing your work later on.

It also gave me a time line...what was it like when they lived there or left? You can usually find this out in the newspapers as well.

August 8 1920 Malkin railway was where they put last residence on ship manifest. Credit: Singleton Argus August 12 1920 This was just before they left the area and headed for Danzig. 

August 8 1915 which is less than 5 years before they left. They were putting up with this just like grandma said. Credit:The Mercury on 17 August 1915 newspaper

August 21, 1920 Malkin, the area listed on the ship manifest of my grandmother. Credit: The Concordia Sentinel, August 21, 1920 front page. They were on their way to the Danzig to get a ship to America based upon dates on the ship manifests.

 When you read these, you can feel what it must have been like to live in the area. This is getting to put the "flesh on the bone" or feel/think what your ancestor must have gone through.

Also, you can then think about them (if you knew them) and maybe give a reason why they did or said something when  you were growing up. It might actually give you a reason why the ancestor did what they did.

How do I take the information from the documents like the Declaration of Intention and look it up?

I always have spare paper around. I list the important information I want to look up. In this case, I'll look up the town my 2 times great grandfather was born - Lipno Russia or correctly Lipno, Poland Russia.

When you look it up, you might find that you cannot find it. Why? Because its part of Poland or Lithuania (depends upon the years) and if you know Poland history, it had 3 partitions in its history and this is BEFORE it was closed off due to the Iron Curtain.

With research in Europe and its history of the country you want to know about. However, you have to be careful because they use the same name of towns over and over but in different "county's" I guess you can call them. The hint is in my 2 times great grandmother's information which is Wilno Russia. Wilno was in Poland and is now called Vilnius/Vilna. 

 Highlighted areas show Lipno, Plock, Vilnius/Wilno on map Credit

When I was growing up, I hated history. To me, it was just a bunch of facts the teacher spat out at you and you had to regurgitate back. Complete waste of time to me. However, this I could look into, relate to and then think of what they thought was bad enough to leave everything they knew behind to start some place they thought was safer after a huge journey. These types of things, I could get into.

Now its time to do some searching online for news articles for these areas around the time OR BEFORE they left for the US.

You will need to go through combinations of information to see what you get. This includes things like looking for a larger town nearby, the county, rivers, etc. Also, it helps if you know the years you are looking for information within. In this case, we want from the time Stanley was born (1869) until they left for the US in 1903. Remember all newspapers have important top stories from around the world in them. Sometimes the information comes out after they've left. Think about where you live. People in the community talk, but the talk hasn't been put in the newspapers, but if they know about it and once/if they get proof, then they can use the information.

Getting back to my maternal 2 times great grandparents, there wasn't much to report during this time for fighting like in wars or battles. I looked up, using Google, the history of the area and of Russia, and found there was a recession of 1901-1903 and getting worse. Then in 1904, they had to do with the results of the Russo-Japanese War which Russia was defeated. I think this was why they left and add this to the talk of a revolt of the people as well. However, to back these facts, up I wanted to see what I could find in the newspapers.

My 2 times great grandparents and family left in 1903 which this above is the same year. Credit: 

This was in 1904 and they left in 1903. Credit

If you put these two together with the history, you can tell life was a struggle. They needed food because people were starving so bad they were selling off children. On top of that, there was probably talk of of a siege to regain control of the government because of no food and no work.

You can track someone due to newspaper articles
You can track someone's progress which I've done with my grandfather, Louis Gauquie. We knew he was with the railroad but even with his Railway paperwork, we couldn't place him any place. However, he was placed in areas due to the newspaper reporting where he was at.

The railway my grandfather worked along. Credit

My grandfather's record of work for the railway. Credit: Railroad Retirement Board

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The date should be 1949 but the 4 is hard to see. Credit

And by now he's gotten out of the railway. Credit

I don't think enough people use newspapers enough nor Google. These can give you tips and hints as to where to look. You can find out a lot from reading the newspapers online as you can tell by the above.