Genealogists frequently look in the newspaper nearest to where their relative died for an obituary. That is a good place to start, but the search should not end there. Other newspapers may have carried obituaries as well and those writeups might be different from the one published in the nearest town. I always check the county seat newspapers. They might have published death notices or longer obituaries for residents throughout the county, not just the county seat proper. And even larger towns in nearby counties might have published notices of your ancestor’s death. Samuel Neill died in West Point, Hancock County, Illinois in 1912. The newspaper in Carthage, the county seat, published an obituary. A newspaper in Quincy, Adams County, Illinois, to the south published a slightly different […]
Obituaries are a notoriously secondary source. As such, they can easily contain errors or omissions. Sometimes this is done intentionally, sometimes accidentally. Regardless of the reason, care must be taken. The spouse might not be the parent of all the children listed. Sometimes children and step-children are intermingled. The same thing with grandchildren. Marriages may be omitted–especially if they produced no children or if there were “issues.” An uncle of mine died a few years ago. He and his first wife divorced. She was not mentioned in the obituary. Nor were their three children. His second wife was mentioned as were their three daughters. Their son was not included in the obituary because he and his mother were on the “outs” at the time of the father’s death. […]
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