If you are fortunate enough to find a newspaper reference to a family reunion that lists all the attendees, determine their connection to each other.
A 1930s reference to a family reunion for one of my family contained the names of nearly eighty relatives. I thought they were all descendants of my 3rd great-grandparents. But when I went through the list, there were several individuals I could not connect to the known descendants of my 3rd great-grandparents (occasionally a friend of the family, long-time neighbor, or significant other of a relative will also attend). A little research indicated that three of those “non-relatives” were related to each other.
Because of that they were researched a little further and their ancestry traced a few generations further back. It turned out these three “non-relatives” were relatives– just not descendants of my 3rd great-grandparents. They were descendants of an uncle of my 3rd great-grandmother.
Going through a list of reunion attendees and determining their relationship to the family of focus for the reunion may result in new discoveries.
One response
I just recently bought a 3 month subscription to newspapers dot com on black Friday
What a bonanza finding a 1932 “Hooper Oliver” reunion article in a neighboring state was! About 30 people listed including my mother, her twin brother, my maternal grandparents and several related to the previous generation of Olivers. The Hoopers? They were in-laws of my 2x great uncle.
Priceless!