Extra! Extra! Finding Info in Unindexed Newspapers - Tuesday's Tip

(Copyright (c) 2015 Cynthia Shenette) One of my ongoing frustrations and difficulties is in finding family history and genealogy information in unindexed newspapers.  Thank goodness for existing newspaper databases like GenealogyBank, Old Fulton Postcards, and Chronicling America that provide searchable access to newspapers.  Unfortunately, many newspapers still do not have sufficient electronic access which is the case with my local newspaper, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.  While the Telegram is indexed online indexing doesn't start until 1989 leaving a major gap in coverage from the beginning of publication (1884 for the Sunday edition and 1886 for the daily) until 1989.

My grandmother was a saver and clipped every newspaper article that came her way--marriages, graduations, performances, retirements--but I'm sure there is plenty of stuff that she missed.  I'm also sure there were plenty of things that didn't occur to her to clip.  I am convinced there is a treasure trove of family history information in the Telegram in the years prior to 1989.  But how to find it?  I've come up with a few techniques that sometimes help in locating information.

Start with the Date of an Event, and Look at the Newspapers Before and After the Event

I think most genealogists are familiar with scrolling through microfilm looking for family obits.  I use the same technique when for looking for information about performances and events.  Last year I wrote a post about a program I have from a 1926 dance recital.  After my post I decided to try to see if I could find some information about Miss Mae Gleeson's dance recital in the newspaper.  I used the date on the program, May 12, 1926 and scrolled through the microfilm of the Telegram for the days around the date of the recital.  Clearly, May was recital month in Worcester in 1926.  I found numerous articles on recitals.  I scrolled through the microfilm for the days before the recital and the day after.  The day after the recital I found a short article about the event!

Learn the History of an Event, and Place Your Family In Context Within the Bigger Picture

According to a family story my grandmother adopted sister's parents both died the same day during the 1918 flu pandemic, leaving my grandmother's adopted sister, my "Aunt Rose" and several siblings orphaned.  I did a little research online and discovered that the majority of flu deaths in Massachusetts occurred during the fall of 1918.  Armed with that knowledge I decided to use the October 1, 1918 issue of the Telegram as a starting place for my research.  I could go back to the September issues or forward to the November issues from there if need be.  I figured if two parents died on the same day and left several children orphaned that might be newsworthy.  I started scrolling through the October issues of the newspaper--I didn't have to scroll long.  On page six of the Telegram for October 1, 1918 I found the story I was looking for.

Check to See if Your Public Library Has a Vertical File or a Clipping File

I am fortunate in that the Worcester Public Library has incredible clipping files.  Does your public library have a vertical file?  While the more recent issues of the Worcester Telegram are the only ones indexed online the clipping files provide some newspaper coverage prior to 1989.  A while back I was trying to find out when St. Mary's School opened, and there was a file on Our Lady of Czestochowa (St. Mary's) in the church section of the Worcester files which led me to an approximate date in the Telegram. From there I was able to scroll through the microfilm for additional information. I also discovered there was a file on my Aunt Rose's business, Cadet Industries.  You never know what you might find, so it behooves you to take a look.

A Database Might Lead You Back to Your Unindexed Hometown Newspaper

I have access to the Boston Globe Historical Archive (1872-1982) through work.  A few weeks ago I decided to do a search on a person involved in a crime in Worcester.  I didn't know exactly when the crime or the court case took place, other than it probably took place sometime in the 1920s.  To my surprise the criminal's name came up in the Globe archive.  I used the date given in the Globe article to find an article in the microfilm around the same date in the Telegram.  I discovered the person was sentenced to seven to 10 years in state prison.  Now I can do further research into criminal records related to the case.  

Don't Assume Your Family Didn't Make News in Other Parts of the Country

We all know what happens when we assume....  

I have GenealogyBank which I love.  When I first started subscribing I searched on Szerejko which is a fairly unique name.  I was surprised to discover my grandmother was mentioned in the Boston Daily Record, the Oregonian (Portland, Oregon), and the Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield, Illinois).  My grandmother witnessed a plane crash in our neighborhood in 1957, and newspapers across the country carried the story. I had completely forgotten about my grandmother's plane crash story until I saw the articles in GenealogyBank.  I was able to get the date from the GenealogyBank articles and search the microfilm of the Telegram for the same date.

Use a Database from a Neighboring Geographic Area

I was looking for information on the Tumbleweed Guest Ranch in West Kill, New York for background info for my post, Tumbleweed Guest Ranch, August 1943.  Since the ranch was in New York, I decided to search Old Fulton Postcards, a newspaper database, to see if I could find info on the ranch.  I found the info I was looking for, and I also found advertisements for the ranch.  I decided to use some of the wording that appeared in the advertisements to see if I could find the same advertisement in other newspaper databases, and voila, I did!  The same advertisement appeared in other newspapers along the East Coast--in Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey.  I wondered how my mom found out about Tumbleweed, given it was located in the Catskills.  Now that I know the dates the advertisement ran in other papers I bet I could go to my local paper, check the same dates, and find a Tumbleweed advertisement in the Worcester Telegram.

Know Which Way Your Local Newspaper Leans

Is there more than one newspaper in town?  If yes, which way does each paper lean? Right or left?  Blue collar or white collar?  Worcester currently only has one daily paper, but it use to have more than one. Back in the day the Worcester Telegram was more the white collar workers' paper (i.e. the paper for the people who owned or ran the factories).  The Worcester Post which is no longer published was the blue collar workers' paper (i.e. the paper for the people who worked in the factories).  I was looking for information on when my grandfather left for camp to be shipped overseas during World War I.  I looked in the Worcester Telegram, and there were general articles talking about young men leaving for war.  When I looked in the Post there were multiple lists of the names of young men heading off to war!  It's important to know what newspaper your ancestors were reading at the time they were alive.

If you haven't tried some of these newspaper search techniques already I hope you do.  While newspaper databases are a great source of information, don't forget or neglect to check those unindexed newspapers as well. Searching them takes a little more time and effort, but the rewards are great and may provide that one tidbit of information that you can't find anywhere else.  

If you have any special techniques for searching unindexed newspapers I'd love to hear from you. Or if  you've written your own blog post about how a particular technique has worked for you feel free to link to your post in the comments section below.

Happy searching!


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Visiting the Tenement Museum in NYC - Follow Friday
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A Sanborn Map Surprise!

(Copyright (c) 2012 Cynthia Shenette) I am currently taking a class to learn about historic architecture in Worcester, MA.  The other night in class we were looking at a variety of atlases and maps, including Sanborn Maps.  Sanborn Maps, for those who don't know, are fire insurance maps that give structure details for cities and town throughout the United States.  You will find a nice explanation of Sanborn Maps here.  

We were looking at a Sanborn Map for Worcester from the early 1970s.  I was surprised at the level of detail the map provided.  I turned the pages and found the map for the area of town where we lived when I was a kid.  I wasn't surprised to find our house or detached garage on the map, but I was surprised to find my play house! There were also a couple of other smaller structures noted on our property as well--a fireplace and a shed.  My play house was originally a chicken coop, and it was pretty small.  You can see a photo of it in the background here.

I also looked at some of the other houses in the neighborhood, and I noticed the small factory building behind what was once my Aunt Rose's house. The building is still there, and I am sure the current residents of the house and their neighbors have wondered what that building was used for. Aunt Rose and her husband manufactured hand cream.  The Sanborn Map had the outline of the structure and hand cream factory written on the map!

If you are looking for information about an old home or ancestral property or just want to know what the heck that old building in the back yard was used for take a look at a Sanborn Map! You might be surprised at what you find!


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Does Your Public Library Have a Vertical File? - Tuesday's Tip

(Copyright (c) 2011 Cynthia Shenette) Back in the old days (we're talking the mid to late 1980s), when I started working in libraries, we had something called a "vertical file" at my library. It was kind of an archaic form of the Internet except way, way, way, way smaller--all the information was contained inside of one filing cabinet. Vertical files were often used to organize articles, pamphlets, reports, and other items that might be of interest to library patrons. Many libraries eliminated their vertical files when easy access to the same or better quality information became available on the Internet. It was kind of like turning in your horse and buggy for a Lamborghini. For most, though not all, intents and purposes the concept of the vertical file has become obsolete.

Some libraries have retained their vertical files or portions of them for people researching local history and genealogy. The wonderful folks at the Worcester Public Library realised the value of the biographical/local history information in the library files. While more recent issues of our local newspaper, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, are indexed and accessible electronically older issues are not. The Worcester Biography File offers a wealth of information on people with Worcester connections, and the Worcester Clipping File offers information on a variety of Worcester subjects. The files don't contain information on everything and everyone, but they sure offer a lot of information which is difficult or cumbersome to access in other ways. I use the clipping files for the info in the files and to figure out where and when events took place. I look for the date of an event in one of the files and then go the microfilm of the newspaper for that date for additional coverage.

Tuesday's Tip: Ask the librarian at your public library if they have some kind of a clipping/vertical file. You'll be glad you did. That little red Lamborghini's sure is pretty, but sometimes the horse and buggy will do the job just fine.


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Tuesday's Tip: Consider Adding Links to Your Blog

(Copyright (c) 2010 Cynthia Shenette) About a week ago, in my post Follow Friday: Routine Maintenance, I mentioned that I planned to check all of my links and do some maintenance on my blog. In a comment to my post Greta Koehl of Greta's Genealogy Bog said, "I need to put up more of the links I regularly use. I have intended to do this for quite a while, but have not gotten around to it. I find the links on other blogs very helpful and wish more people had links on their blogs." I agree with Greta wholeheartedly on this. I too find the links on people's geneablogs very helpful. If I find a blogger who has discovered something via a link I find particularly interesting or would be useful to my research I add it to my blog.

When I updated my template back in the spring, one of the things I looked for was a template that offered the ability to add a number of links. I use my blog not only as my blog but as my web page as well. I write my blog posts, read the geneablogs I follow, and use my links section as a gateway to the resources I use on a regular basis. One stop shopping so to speak.

More important than the "big" databases that everyone uses, at least I think, are those local, regional, ethnic, and sometimes quirky resources that I might not know about otherwise. A while back Apple of Apple's Tree, in her post David, Daniel, Donald!, mentioned Old Fulton Postcards which covers newspapers from the state of New York. While most of my research centers around Polish, French-Canadian, and New England sources, I occasionally research New York family/ancestors. All I could say was wow when I checked Old Fulton Postcards! What a gold mine of information. I found information there that I hadn't found elsewhere. I promptly added Old Fulton Postcards to my list of links.

Tip for the Day: Check out the links at the bottom of my blog. Maybe you'll discover something new and useful to your research. Share your favorite links by adding them to your blog. Maybe you'll help another geneablogger discover new information as well.


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Tuesday's Tip: A Tale of Two Indexers
Tuesday's Tip: "Ask a Librarian" Service at Your Public Library
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Tuesday's Tip: "Ask a Librarian" Service at Your Public Library

(Copyright (c) 2010 Cynthia Shenette) Have you used the "Ask a Librarian" service at your public library? It's a wonderful service offered by many public libraries around the country. If you haven't used it I suggest you try it out, and if you have I'd love to hear about your experience. I used it recently when I was looking for some statistics on the population of Katowice, Poland for my post Trip to Poland, 1937 (An Ongoing Series): Katowice.

I'm a librarian myself, and B.C. (Before Child) spent 11 years in reference. Believe me, reference librarians live for this stuff. I usually do my own research, because I love doing it, but one night was at home and knew because of scheduling issues I wasn't going to be able to get down to the library for several days. I had a brilliant thought. Why not check out the "Ask a Librarian" service at the public library? I filled out their online form around 10:00 p.m., and bada bing bada boom, the next morning there was my answer in an e-mail response. I followed it up with another question and promptly got a second reply. I love those people.

Here are my tips for using your "Ask a Librarian" service successfully:

~ read and follow the directions for an e-mail query
~ provide as much information as you can to give the librarian a real idea of what you are looking for, but also try to be as precise and succinct as possible
~ tell the librarian what resources you've already checked for information
~ be patient as sometimes it may take a day or two or even a week or two to receive your answer
~ be polite, and a follow-up thank you e-mail is always nice

Be aware that some questions lend themselves to e-mail queries more readily than others. My population question was pretty straightforward. Librarians may not, or in some cases will not, do extensive research for you, at least free of charge. If you provide an exact citation for an obit they will probably be able to help you out. If you say, "I think my John Smith died sometime in 1902," but you're not sure of the particulars and there isn't an easily accessible index to the newspaper where the obit might have appeared, they may not be able to help you. Believe it or not, not all old newspapers are indexed or online. Take some of my local Worcester, MA papers for example. Librarians simply don't have time to do extensive research for every patron. That being said, "Ask a Librarian" is a wonderful service. Try it out.

Now I'm off to do research. I live for this stuff...


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What's In A Name (An Ongoing Series): Radziewicz

Tuesday's Tip: A Tale of Two Indexers

(Copyright (c) 2010 Cynthia Shenette) In the last week or so I renewed my search for an Aleksander Szerejko. I don't know for certain, but I believe Alexander may be my great-grandfather Leonard Szerejko's brother. I'm trying to tie Aleksander, Leonard, and a Victoria Szerejko together as siblings. For info on Victoria see my previous post What's in a Name? (An Ongoing Series) : Radziewicz. I discovered the Ancestry immigration collection was available for free over the Labor Day weekend, so I decided to take advantage of the offer rather than wait for my next trip to the library.

I did a bit of searching and eventually came up with a record for an Alexander Szorescko from Warchau. My grandfather and my great-grandfather were from Warsaw, so it makes sense that the Aleksander I'm searching might be from Warsaw. Warschau is the German translation of Warsaw--the ship set sail from the German port of Hamburg. Again, it makes sense that the person writing the information from a German port might write the name of the city in German.

The other night I jumped over to Steve Morse's One Step site to search the Ellis Island site from there. I found the following: Alexander Storeako from Warshon. Same person and the same record, but a different interpretation of the handwriting.

I looked more closely at the record. What do I see when I look at the record? I see Alexander Szoreako from Warshau. Three different people interpreted the same record in three different ways. I'm still not convinced Alexander Szorecsko or Alexander Storeako or Alexander Szoreako is my Aleksander Szerejko, but it gives me something to go on at this point.

Tip for the Day: If you can't find the record you are looking for using one database, try another database that searches the same set of records or record groups. Maybe you'll find it there.

What's In A Name? (An Ongoing Series): Radziewicz

Is it just me, or do you love when you have one of those, "A ha!" moments? That happened to me two nights ago. I've been looking for information on an ancestor I've been recently tracking, Victoria (Szerejko) Radziewicz. After much hunting I finally found her in the 1900 U.S. Census.

Radziewicz is another one of those names for which spelling variations are endless. Doing a Soundex or "sounds like" search hasn't been helpful because any kind of a "sounds like" search returns too many results. Very frustrating. Victoria was related to my grandfather Adolf Szerejko somehow. My best guess is that she was either his aunt--the sister of Adolf's father Leonard Szerejko--or a cousin. Two cousins, both fellow genealogists, and I are currently trying to figure out how Victoria and Adolf were related to then trace our family origins back in Poland.

I have Victoria's marriage record from the Schuylkill County Courthouse. According to the certificate, Wiktorja Szarejko married Stanislaw Radziewicz on October 15, 1891 in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. Apparently Radziewicz is a fairly common name, and their were lots of Radziewicz's living in Shenandoah around 1900. Until now I haven't been able to find Victoria in the 1900 census. I did find her in the 1910 census. In 1910 Victore (Victoria) Radziwicz was living in Dudley, MA with her children--Helen age 16, Alex (Alexander) age 14, Stella age 12, Vera age 9, and Charles age 6. Also listed are Victoria's daughter Mary (Maryanna), age 18 and her son-in-law Dominic Pasky (correct spelling Piascik or Piasczyk) age 21. All of Victoria's children were listed as born in Pennsylvania. What happened to Stanislaw? The notation on the census is unclear, but may indicate Victoria is a widow at this point.

If Victoria was married in Pennsylvania and her last son Charles was born in Pennsylvania in 1906, it makes sense to me that they were probably still living in PA for the 1900 census. I searched Heritage Quest, Ancestry, and the Family Search pilot. I tried Radziwicz, Radsavage, Radzewicus, Ruscavage--all variations on the Radziewicz theme. The spelling for Radziewicz was probably so mangled by the census taker I'd never find it by the last name. I decided to try searching by first names. I tried Stanislaw, Stanislav, and Stanislow. I tried Stiney, Staney, and Stanny. How about Victoria, Wiktoria, or Wiktorja? Or Victore or Vickie or Stan? On the verge of a Dr. Seuss moment I gave up. I was exhausted. I needed a cup of tea.

Then on Tuesday night it happened. I found them! Bingo, just like that! Well almost just like that. I had a brilliant thought. I decided to try searching for Victoria's kid's names. First I tried Stella on the Family Search pilot. No luck. Then I tried Alexander. No luck again. Then I tried Alex. Bingo! There they were, the Radzavoge family, and they were living in Shenandoah! Listed were Shiney (Stanislaw), Amelia (Victoria), Mary (Maryanna), Ellen (Helen), Alex (Alexander), and Astella (Stella). All the other particulars were correct so I knew I had the right family! I did learn one new piece of information. The immigration date for both Victoria and Stanislaw was listed as 1883. Up until now, my cousins and I believed they immigrated in 1891.

From what I've read about Shenandoah, at the turn of the century there were more people people in Shenandoah per square mile than New York's Chinatown. My guess is that some poor overworked census taker, with little or no knowledge of Polish and Polish names, went from house to house. Whatever a name sounded like, by the resident answering the door and with a heavy Polish accent, is what was written down. It was the census taker's best guess so to speak.

Anyway, I'm thrilled to have finally found Victoria and Stanislaw, or Amelia and Shiney as I now like to think of them. I'm currently trying to find Victoria in the 1920 census, so far she has remained elusive. I'll keep trying though. Victoria, Wiktoria, Wiktorja...

Surname variation in my records include: Radziewicz, Radziwicz, Radsavage, Radzavoge, Radzewicus, Ruscavage.