A great way to get a perspective on your ancestor’s time and place is to read an issue or two of their hometown paper while you are searching for that obituary. In addition to the national news, there will be local news.
Reading the paper will give you a history lesson in microcosm and may make you aware of things you never learned in history class. It might give you an entirely different viewpoint on your ancestor as well.
And being familiar with the newspaper’s layout and general style never hurt either.
2 Responses
How can I find stories in newspapers about my relatives if I don’t know where they lived and only one newspaper article shows up on GenealogyBank and Newspapers.com?
Unfortunately not everyone is mentioned in newspapers. Do you have any idea of where they lived? It’s possible that there are other newspapers that may mention them–GenealogyBank and Newspapers.com are not complete in what they have.