This 1906 item regarding a “missing” horse tells quite a bit about its owner, including:
- confirming the dairyman’s address.
- giving his occupation.
- suggesting church affiliation
- providing last known “alive on” date
Sometimes the biggest clues in newspapers are not found in the “in-your-face” items but instead are in the daily grind of life references that seem mundane on the surface. And whether or not something is a clue depends upon what you know and what you don’t.
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4 Responses
As I read copies of microfilmed newspapers for my “genie” club, I read a lot about people visiting, selling, advertising, etc. Found out a lot about our family that way. Wish I had cut them all out and saved them for other families. We live and learn.
I have found many helpful tidbits in these little news articles and personals. Some examples are:
1. I was able to confirm the relationship between a man who had moved to the mid-west to his brothers who had remained in New York State in a personal column saying he was back home for a visit.
2. A news article about the will of a man gave me the names of his ex-wife’s new husband, the new names of their sons and the married names of the daughters who all received an inheritance even though their names had been changed to correspond with their stepfather’s name.
3. Another article was about a man who was arrested in Cincinnati and found to have burglary tools, forged checks and other suspicious articles related to his trade. He also had a songbook containing an inscription saying that if he was killed, to please let his family know what had happened to him, gave the alias he was going under and his real name, the name of his father and uncles and where they were all living in New York and Syria.
I love newspapers!!
Did they find Ole Dobbin?
Not that I know of. I didn’t search the papers for him, but that might not be a bad idea 😉