Genealogy
ancestor, citizen, hometown, Lawton Constitution, newspaper, Paul Follett, town, Tree tracers gregathcompany
7:16 pm
Newspapers Reveal Towns And Ancestors’ Past
The hometown newspaper offers valuable and unique insight into the life of a community. Within its pages, the story of the town and its citizens is revealed. The citizens are our ancestors.
Details of an ancestor’s life are often found only in the newspaper. Besides obituaries, birth and marriage announcements, peruse the gossip columns, society and lodge news, letters to the editor, legal notices and sports page.
Small towns and weekly newspapers are often the best. They contain more personal local news and less state and national. This is great for the genealogist.
Newspapers are also an excellent source for local history. Sometimes, they are the only source. Editors tend to have “their ear to the ground” and know what is happening. Their articles on local events, politics and news may be the only record available or maybe the articles will suggest avenues for further research.
The Oklahoma Historical Society (OHS) maintains the largest collection of Oklahoma newspapers. The collection is not only the largest but also the most complete collection in the state. It is estimated that they own over 90% of all newspapers published in Oklahoma. The collection consists of over 4,000 different newspapers. The newspapers are on 35,000 rolls of microfilm.
To learn if the society owns a particular newspaper consult the newspaper database found on the society’s web site —http://www.okhistory.org/research/collections/newspapers.html.
In 1998 a paper listing of the collection was published. Titled Index of Oklahoma Newspapers, the newspapers are alphabetized by title and by county. The Family History Room at the Lawton Public Library owns a copy of this index. These newspapers are not available through interlibrary loan.
Copies of articles from the newspaper collection are available. The fee is $10 for Oklahoma residents. OHS members receive a 10% discount of copy costs. To order, the “Newspaper Order Form” must be completed and submitted. Download the form at www.okhistory.org/research/forms/newspaperform.html.
(This information was taken from Paul Follett’s column Tree Tracers published in the Lawton Constitution on May 19, 2008.)
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Genealogy
ancestor, event, fund raiser, Genealogy, history, membership, organization, round table, service, social gregathcompany
7:41 pm
Part of a genealogy or history related service or social organization? Consider having an ancestor round table. Everyone bring their knowledge and an ancestor. In turn, each give a brief case study of the ancestor and ask for suggestions of your fellows. If you have enough members interested, it could even be open to the public as a membership event, or fund raiser.
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Electronic Magazine and Genealogy
ancestor, case study, event, forum, fundraiser, history, member, membership, round table, social organization gregathcompany
10:33 pm
Part of a genealogy or history related service or social organization? Consider having an ancestor round table. Everyone bring their knowledge and an ancestor. In turn, each give a brief case study of the ancestor and ask for suggestions of your fellows. If you have enough members interested, it could even be open to the public as a membership event, or fund raiser.
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Electronic Magazine and Genealogy
ancestor, book, bulletin board, chat, event, fair, family, ID, identify, lines, local, name tag, regional, research, researcher, retreat, ribbon gregathcompany
6:19 pm
Don’t overlook your local and regional genealogy events, retreats, genealogy, ancestor or book fairs! While networking and finding hot leads are traditionally considered when attending ancestor fairs, you never know when you’ll meet someone researching one or more of your lines at any genealogy or family event. When preparing to go consider having a name badge or ribbon (or even a shirt) made that details at least your main research lines. Some events provide bulletin boards, chat areas, etc. – but it never hurts to increase your chances to “go above and beyond” planned activities to search out other researchers on your line.
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Electronic Magazine and Genealogy
ancestor, area, data, destroyed, deterioration, discarded, group, information, misfiled, moved, record, related, search, surname, time, vandalism gregathcompany
2:39 pm
Still looking for that lost ancestor? When you run across the right surname in a general area at the correct time, never discard this information. This data may be the same family (yea!) or different (boo!), but one can rarely tell when finding the data originally. Likewise, a group that appears not to be related when the information is found, may be related and you uncover the link ten years later. Don’t rely on research data sheets to go back and find information you uncovered 20 years ago: records get misplaced, misfiled, moved, go through natural deterioration, in some cases are discarded or destroyed, not to mention acts of God or vandalism.
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Electronic Magazine and Genealogy
ancestor, census, church, county, document, fraternal, local, material, newspaper, organization, reference, research, search, source, state gregathcompany
10:19 pm
Many people when researching forget to use reference materials in concert. While this sounds strange, sometimes it doesn’t even cross their minds. Example: Found the ancestor in the census but that year doesn’t have everything you want (or you prefer more than one documented source) – look in other state, county, and local records as well as local newspapers. Could they have belonged to a local church or (fraternal) organization? Don’t leave these out of the search!
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Electronic Magazine and Genealogy
ancestor, fellow, friend, group, line, pedigree, peer, period, researcher, swap, time gregathcompany
10:13 pm
Have an “ancestor swap”. Have a pre-determined time period that you and a fellow researcher (or group) works on your line while you work on theirs. This can sometimes produce better results than just “picking their brain” for helpful suggestions on a problem you have.
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Electronic Magazine and Genealogy
America, ancestor, citizen, collection, document, free land, history, homestead, information, NARA, National Archives, National Monument, Nebraska, paper, preservation, record, student, United States, US, USA gregathcompany
11:08 pm
While becoming that student of history we have already suggested, is your lost ancestor in America during the time the US was giving out free land to it’s citizens? If so, your next stop should be the homestead records! This little utilized collection of documents and information is housed at the national archives and has not been reproduced or indexed in any wide reaching way. The Homestead National Monument has begun exploring the best way to augment NARA general paper preservation process by replicating them in Nebraska.
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Electronic Magazine and Genealogy
ancestor, family story, guidance, history, link, oral, parent, pedigree, person, related, relation, research, time period, training gregathcompany
11:04 pm
If you have a family story stating you are related to a certain person (Daniel Boon, Thomas Jefferson, King Henry VIII, etc.). but have not been able to get your research back in time past a certain ancestor, don’t fall into the “missing link” trap. Many genealogists, especially those who have taken up research without any training or guidance will simply skip this lost ancestor and pick up research with who they “are sure” is this ancestor’s parents. People have done untold research on other people’s families in this manner – not their own. While it is tempting to try and “reverse engineer” the pedigree in this manner, it rarely works.
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Electronic Magazine and Genealogy
ancestor, brick wall, brother, children, documentation, lead, lost, notation, record, review, stumped, verified, verify gregathcompany
11:00 pm
If you are stumped – another lost ancestor – renew your efforts to find further documentation on the family members you have verified. One never knows when a notation in records for children, brothers, etc. will give your the lead you need to locate that lost link.
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