The Legacy Tree Genealogists Blog

Using local newspapers in your genealogy research can provide important glimpses into the lives of your ancestors. Here's how we used a small-town newspaper to uncover details about a client's ancestor not found anywhere else. Turn-of-the-century small-town newspapers are treasure troves of genealogical information. Offering so much more than just cold, hard facts, these small-town papers reported on the social lives of their citizens, retold the drama at city council meetings, or announced both the routine and the unusual events in the community. These newspaper articles not only confirm facts found in other primary source documents, they can add depth and character to genealogical research subjects.For instance, I was recently researching a family who lived in the community of Bristol, Pennsylvania, for over fifty years. Three generations of this family worked, lived and died in this town, a town first settled in 1681 on the shores of the Delaware River. The local newspaper …