RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Top-of-the-hill on Tuesday 17 October 23 15:21 BST (UK)
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I received an email this morning from Findmypast, as I expect many of us did, headed "Extra! Extra! your family made the news".
Unfortunately my family didn't! They lived in the depths of the country, and apart from a couple of 2nd cousins taking part in agricultural shows (and not winning!) and 2 early 20th century funeral reports, I have found hardly anything. By the 1930s there are a few references to ladies serving tea at the Mothers' Union jumble sale, but that is hardly making the news.
I think we were, and still are, people who kept/keep a low profile.
I would say that I use the newspapers on FindMyPast all the time for local history!
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"A gentleman's name should appear in the newspaper only three times: when he's born, when he marries, and when he dies."
Thankfully I don't seem to be descended from any gentlemen.
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Some of mine made the news more often than they ought to have done! ;D
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Yes, I've got one, although not immediate - my father's cousin, who was investigated by MI5 and an MP :o
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I have one ancestor who was always in trouble for violence and poaching.
And one direct ancestor was sent to Australia in 1791, and two ancestor siblings were also sent to Australia as convicts. I have found many obituaries and the like for my ancestors, or them being the victims of crimes, or witnesses to crimes.
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I have well over 1000 newspaper articles. Of course, a lot of them pertain to very distant relatives, a lot are obituaries, and a lot are comical in their triviality ["Old Settlers Club ... Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Ennis entertained the audience with a song"].
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I have an ancestor who shot his mother but FindMyPast doesn't know he's one of mine shhhhh ;D
C
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I am much more invested in the direct lines and use siblings etc to get back further with direct lines, and this applies to newspaper records as well. Such as an ancestors brothers obituary can give some info on the direct line I did not know about.
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One of my Great Uncles, George, was mentioned in the newspaper for earning a Military Medal during WW1 and Edward was my Grandfather.
Carol
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My ancestors seemed to be regularly in the news.
A couple of my Grt x 2 ancestors were accused of murder in 1856 (later acquitted on lack of sufficient evidence) so that made for fascinating reading although obviously I am sorry the person was murdered and for what my ancestors suffered on account of being (I believe) wrongly accused. If could undo all that, I would, and forfeit all the salacious reading that made. :o
In general, I am amazed at what they would publish about back in the day. No such thing as data protection. We have an old local paper at the local studies which I like read - Whitley Seaside Chronicle. Shame it is not on line as it has great articles and photos.
This will often list minutiae such as who stayed at local hotels, and who bought what gift at weddings .. and who might have collapsed in the street even!
It almost seemed like you couldn't sneeze back in the day for fear it might be written about. 8)
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My husband's grandfather was done for speeding in Cannock in the 1930's when I found it in the newspaper I thought it was hilarious as he was known for having a heavy right foot in the family as my husband used to tell me regularly when we talked about him. He was the owner of several garages and motor dealerships in the Wrexham area and used to travel around the country deleivering cars, he also had a daughter who lived in Suffolk with her grandparents and used to travel there often.
Nesta
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I have found some pieces about my husband's family, who did make the news sometimes. Several of his great-uncles were drivers, and sometimes owners, of steam traction engines and sometimes fell foul of the laws of the road. There was also a fatal accident where an engine ran out of control on a hill. The most useful report was when these brothers were in court about maintaining their aged parents - names, jobs and wages were given, and how many children they had to support. Another son, the direct ancestor, was in Paris and could not be served a payment order. I presume he was there with a steam engine.
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My Grandfather and his brother as youngsters made the news for stealing a turnip from a field in the early 1900s.
The judge seems to have read the riot act about it and told them they were lucky to get fined and be spared prison. I thought he was very harsh.
I know we should not condone crime but they came from a large, poor mining family. Their Mother had bled to death in childbirth. No food banks back then. I would feel compassion even if they weren't my family.
The brother, my Great Uncle went on to be gassed in WW1 and died of stomach cancer. My coal miner Grandfather died of exhaustion and anaemia aged in the early 1930s. He died when my Aunty, his youngest was a toddler. But she said she remembered he would always give her the top of his boiled egg.
I never eat turnip now without thinking about my Grandfather and his brother. I can only imagine the fine would have made their poverty even worse.
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In my experience, newspapers are most useful if your target relatives lived in a small town. One branch of my tree was located in Brooklyn, NY, and they didn't make the news. But in Merritt's Landing, Wisconsin, singing a song, getting a new coat of paint on the barn or finding a large hair ball in a cow's stomach was considered newsworthy.
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I received this email & got quite excited thinking it was a hint for something I didn't know, but was sadly disappointed!
Online newspapers are a wonderful resource, without them I would never have discovered the full story of a missing child, a grandfather in court for receiving stolen goods, a cousin burning to death in her father's shop, a drowning in the Yarra River, a cousin inventing a new flour-milling process, another introducing a particular breed of sheep to New Zealand. Note to self - when searching NZ newspapers do not use the word sheep ;D luckily I knew the breed which considerably cut down the search results. Suicides, child neglect, husband abandoning his wife & child...it all makes a family tree into a family history.
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I can boast two newsworthy ancestors.
My paternal third great grandfather was transported to Australia in 1817 for "having in his possession counterfeit banknotes". A considerable amount of digging revealed the fact that the total sum of his skulduggery amounted to £3.00. His 14 year term rnfded abruptly with his death in 1823. Though we were able to uncover a burial certificate no amount of research has uncovered his cause of death.
On the maternal side of my tree a second cousin, a professional silversmith, spent the entirety of WW1 in prison for manufacturing and distributing his own two shilling pieces on an industrial scale.
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In my experience, newspapers are most useful if your target relatives lived in a small town. One branch of my tree was located in Brooklyn, NY, and they didn't make the news. But in Merritt's Landing, Wisconsin, singing a song, getting a new coat of paint on the barn or finding a large hair ball in a cow's stomach was considered newsworthy.
My grandmother retired to an Island where two older sisters lived. The local newspaper came out weekly and it was considered rude not to announce each and every visitor from Off Island, when you were getting your house painted, etc. The local correspondent was the daughter-in-law of my grandmother's landlady so there was no danger of me, or anyone else in the family, even making a day trip on the ferry for a quick visit without it appearing in print. Therefore, I have a stack of clippings over the years for my visits and lots of other things.
The most popular edition of the paper was the annual one which listed EVERYONE's amount of property tax for the year. I think they did double the print run for it and it was read and re-read then discussed for at least a week. [not sure it they still do it]
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I can boast two newsworthy ancestors.
My paternal third great grandfather was transported to Australia in 1817 for "having in his possession counterfeit banknotes". A considerable amount of digging revealed the fact that the total sum of his skulduggery amounted to £3.00. His 14 year term rnfded abruptly with his death in 1823. Though we were able to uncover a burial certificate no amount of research has uncovered his cause of death.
On the maternal side of my tree a second cousin, a professional silversmith, spent the entirety of WW1 in prison for manufacturing and distributing his own two shilling pieces on an industrial scale.
I managed to stumble across a newspaper article for my Suffolk ancestor in 1791 stealing a hog and being told he is to be transported for 7 years. He landed in Australia in February 1792 and died likely at the end of April as he was buried in Sydney on 1st May 1792.
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I had another rather odd email form FindMyPast yesterday - I wonder if others got the same or something different?
Email headed "Did Ernest Sims make headlines? Then it went on to say "We've spotted Ernest Sims in the small print." So what? No relevance to me, although oddly my husband worked for someone of that name 40 years ago. ::)