My 2x great grandfatherJohn Seale died in Kingston, Ontario in 3 April 1892. I found a small notice in the Kingston paper, as expected, which gave the date of death, his age and funeral arrangements.
SEALE- In Pittsburgh, April 3rd, John Seale aged 84 years.The funeral will take place on Wednesday morning at ten o'clock from his late residence, Front Road, to Cataraqui cemetery. Friends and acquaintances are respectfully invited to attend.
It's neither here nor there, but he was actually 85.
I decided to take a look at other city papers and found this item in a Toronto newspaper, not under the BMD notices, but under Kingston News.. notes. This one gives us a bit more insight into the character of John.
My great grand aunt's husband was a locomotive engineer, and when he died in August 1914 his burial record said he died in a railway accident. All I know was that he was living around Chaudiere Station, Quebec City at the time. So I went to Google Newspaper Archives and went through all the newspapers from around Quebec City that had available issues for that date. I finally found the story that he died in the Quebec Daily Telegraph, which led me to find the story of the accident in L'Action Sociale.
Sometimes you find a local newspaper for that time, but it is mostly unreadable, like this issue from April 1916 when my grandfather's brother, Alex Mavor, died in WWI.
So if you don't find an article or notice that you're looking for locally, try another city's newspaper.
Excellent tip! Sometimes an early newspaper in, say, Cleveland would add a tag line like "Cincinnati papers please copy" to alert the other city that someone from their area was mentioned in the obit or wedding announcement. That helped me trace a step-grandma on one branch of the tree.
ReplyDeleteOh right! I've seen that in some Kingston and Montreal papers too!
DeleteHaha... I have to go back to English class! McTeer didn't die in the Quebec Daily Telegraph. The article about his death was in the paper. Oops!
ReplyDeleteGreat tip! And I love the Kingston references in this post :) I too blogged about using newspapers this week...FindMyPast UK has a fantastic collection and I have had lots of success using it, as well as that of Trove in Australia.
ReplyDeleteWe have found the tag line in the St. Louis MO papers also.
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