Week 13: “In the News” #52Ancestors
This week we were to write about using newspapers in our family research. In last week’s blog I mentioned Chronicling America, that great (free) website at the Library of Congress containing (as of today) 14,932,463 available pages. One cool thing Chronicling America does is highlight 2-3 papers from 100 years ago every day. For instance, today Chronicling America features The Washington Herald of April 1, 1919. The front page of that paper includes stories on the deadlocked peace negotiations and the British threat to march on Berlin “Unless Huns Sign Treaty.”[1]
Chronicling America is not the only free newspaper site. One of my other favorites is Old Fulton New York Post Cards (www.futonhistory.com). This website is run single-handedly by Thomas Tryniski who started out digitizing old postcards. It is now the largest free online collection of New York newspapers. Tryniski’s collection includes papers published from 1795 thru 2007 with data added every Sunday night (!!!). While his concentration is with New York papers, Tryniski has added papers from other states and Canada. I find it a little wonky but have located some really great stuff on there.
The last website I’ll mention today (before I get on to my Ancestor “In the News) is The Ancestor Hunt (www.theancestorhunt.com). This is not a website of newspaper pages themselves, but it provides links to U.S. historical newspapers. The cool thing about this website is that you can sign up to be notified when links are updated with newly digitized papers and pages. As of today, this website has over 27,210 free links to historical American newspapers. Can’t beat that for service!
Okay, okay, enough with the dorky genealogy stuff.
When I was in the early stages of my family tree research (1998 to be precise), my oldest brother forwarded to me an email from someone looking to make a connection. The woman who contacted him had stumbled across my brother’s name when she did an internet email-name search on “Glacy.” She introduced herself as a potential cousin (maiden name Glacy) and wondered if we were related to a Joseph Glacy. I was thrilled to work with her and we exchanged some emails to determine if and how we were related. As I mentioned, this was pretty early in my genealogy life, so I wasn’t making any head-way with the information she had. Then she asked: “Do you know if your great grandfather happened to have committed suicide by shooting himself?”
Ah, what?
My first response was “no.” Surely my dad or grandmother would have mentioned something like that so it couldn’t be MY Joseph Glacy we were talking about. My dad was alive then and I asked him about this. His answer was also “no.”
My potential cousin then sent me newspaper article on his death and, of course, her Joseph Glacy was, in fact, my great-grandfather. There it was, in black and white, “Aged Man Takes Life While Alone in Home.”[2] So how did I confirm that this man was my great-grandfather? The article goes on to explain that my very own grandmother found his body. And she never thought to mention this to anyone? Ever? I am sure that this was a gruesome scene, so I guess I can’t blame her for not mentioning it, but still….
That one article connected me with my cousin (no longer a “potential cousin”) and I have very much enjoyed getting to know her and work with her on our family’s history. I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting her or her family on Long Island, but I hope to someday soon. In the meantime, we are friends on Facebook and share our lives that way.
Did I mention how much I love old newspapers?
[1] Fred S. Ferguson, “Slow Work of Big Four Halts Pact, The Washington (D.C.) Herald, 1 April 1919, p. 1, col. 1-2; image, Chronicling America (https://www.chroniclingamerica.loc.gov: accessed 1 April 2019).
[2] Thankfully, my cousin sent me a copy of this article because I have not yet found it online.
Joseph Glacy (1844-1917) Joseph was 6 months old when he and his family came to the U.S. See Week 3 for part of their story. Also, if you know my brothers, they look just like him!