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Catch up on the latest in family history with these articles from GenealogyBank News
November 2015 Newsletter
- Mayflower Genealogy: Finding Your Cousins Using Newspapers
- Obituaries – Don’t Make This Genealogy Mistake
- What’s Your Favorite Pumpkin Pie Recipe?
- GenealogyBank Just Added 5 Million More Records!
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Obituaries – Don’t Make This Genealogy Mistake
This is a typical newspaper obituary.
It gives the usual genealogical information, including her name (Ella M. Crofoot), age, & date and place of birth.
Stamford Advocate (Stamford, Connecticut), 17 February 1970, page 6
I could easily transcribe this information and move on to the next relative to research in my family tree – but that would be a mistake.
Why?
I have her obituary – isn’t that what I came for?
Historical newspapers often published two items about the deceased: the obituary and the more compact "death notice."
Death notices come in all shapes and sizes, and vary from newspaper to newspaper – but, you must look for them while doing your genealogy research or you will miss important clues.
For example: on the same page of that newspaper, further down along the far right column, there is Ella’s "death notice."
Stamford Advocate (Stamford, Connecticut), 17 February 1970, page 6
Comparing both news articles, we quickly see that additional relatives are named in the death notice:
"Aunt of Lawrence T. Kemp, Mrs. Olive Skinner, Mrs. Hazel Randall, and Mrs. Ruth Brush."
Good thing we checked or we’d have missed four family members.
Genealogy Search Tip: Always check for both the Obituary AND the Death Notice. You’ll likely be glad that you did.