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Thanks to Daliowa who posted the above link in the People Search forum yesterday. As she noted, both free and pay archives are listed but some of the pay archives may be accessible from a public library.
I spent some time last night searching some of the free newspaper archives listed and was pleasantly surprised to find obituaries and birth notices published in the 1920s and early 1930s for some distant relatives in my family tree.
I've found that rural or small town obituary and marriage notices from early in the twentieth century often don't mention the date of the event and may simply say something vague such as "last Thursday". If you know the newspaper publication date, finding the date of an event is easy with this online calculator: Day of the Week Calculator by Ancestor Search.
I love having access to Heritage Quest's online database! Always check to see if your local library (or one that you are able to get a library card for) has a subscription to this database. I have figured out ways to use their advanced search when looking through the census data (my most common use for this database). So many times, the person who transcribed the handwritten page either misreads the names, or the census taker changed the usual spelling of someone's surname, so I have learned to search using just the first name (sometimes just the initial of the first name), the state and county, the age range of the individual and what state they were born in. Always surprised when I am able to solve another small mystery!
This is an old tip, but I think one that many people forget: SPELLING - don't assume there is only one way to spell your ancestor's name. Look under different spellings, if you don't you may miss a lot of information.
This is an old tip, but I think one that many people forget: SPELLING - don't assume there is only one way to spell your ancestor's name. Look under different spellings, if you don't you may miss a lot of information.
Very true.
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