Researching your elusive female ancestor can be difficult. Surname changes at marriage and the seemingly lack of records documenting the lives of women can make it difficult to conduct research in the same way you would for a male ancestor.
Newspapers are a rich source of genealogical information. They document a community on a daily or weekly basis. While they do contain the old genealogical standby, the obituary, they also contain so much more. Women can be found in all parts of the newspaper including feature articles, the society pages, advertisements, and more. Newspapers record weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, and other celebrations. They also document the tougher times like divorces, court cases, crime and deaths.
To find a comprehensive list of what genealogical data is available in a newspaper, consult The Source : A Guide to American Genealogy, edited by Loretto Dennis Szucs and Sandra Hargreaves Luebking, page 564.
We often get stuck in the rut of just searching for obituaries in newspapers. While obituaries can be helpful, they should be only one of the places you should look for your ancestor. Geneablogger Amy Coffin, whose blog can be found at
http://wetree.blogspot.com/, points out, "Don't ignore local newspapers when searching for information on female ancestors. Little surprises are often found in the society sections and other areas of the pages. Women often belonged to church societies and local social groups. Young girls' names were listed as participants in school pageants. When company came to town or locals visited other areas, their travels were mentioned in the news. Searching for female ancestors in historical newspapers may provide a glimpse of these women's lives as well as clues about other family members, friends and acquaintances."
Women were members of religious, social and fraternal organizations. A newspaper's religion pages may show pictures and detail events that women were involved in. The Women's Christian Temperance Union, an organization your ancestor may have been involved in if she was against the use of alcohol, had its members write articles that appeared in the newspaper. Organizations held events, did charity work and celebrated, all activities that would have been documented through newspaper photographs and articles.
And what about that obituary? When reading an obituary, pay careful attention to family member's names. Genealogist Dae Powell, whose website Shoestring Genealogy can be found at http://shoestringgenealogy.com/, reminds us that an obituary may be the source for identifying a woman's maiden name. The surnames of brothers listed in an obituary can provide you with a woman's maiden name. Also take note that deaths may be reported in many different ways in a newspaper. They may be found in funeral notices, death notices, obituaries, memorials and family thank you's. If the death was due to an accident or a homicide/suicide, there will be feature articles about the event and ongoing trial coverage. Legal notices may exist to notify the community of an estate sale or a probate case. If the deceased was ill prior to death, there may be a small notice informing the community about the illness and reporting on family and friends who visited her during the illness.
Newspapers can be found online through various providers including WorldVitalRecords. State digital newspaper projects are scanning older newspapers and making them accessible online. Some examples of state newspaper projects include Utah
http://digitalnewspapers.org/, Florida
http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/flnews/, and Washington,
http://www.secstate.wa.gov/library/newspapers_wsl.aspx. The U.S. Newspaper Program has a list of states who received grant monies to catalog and preserve newspapers. The corresponding website for each state can be found at http://www.neh.gov/projects/usnp.html. In addition, microfilmed newspapers for the locality you are researching may be located at state libraries or archives, public and university libraries as well as historical societies. The Kansas State Historical Society, http://www.kshs.org/index.htm, has a collection of microfilmed newspapers for locations throughout the United States. You may borrow these newspapers through interlibrary loan.
When searching for newspapers for your ancestor's locality, remember that the local paper wasn't the only one that may mention your ancestor. More than one newspaper could have been reporting on a city, regional or even county level. One area could have had more than one newspaper that served it. In addition, don't stop your search at the local newspaper, look for newspapers that you ancestor may have read that focused on their religion or ethnic group.
Yes, newspaper research can be time consuming and difficult. Not all newspapers are indexed which means that you will have to search by reading multiple issues of the newspaper for the years spanning your ancestor's life. But in the end, newspapers can bring your female ancestor to life.
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