Using the Personals

In a number of newspapers in the late 1800s and early 1900s, there would be a section of "Society News" which would tell of the visitings of various residents and their relatives, parties held, families moving away, etc. In large city newspapers, these would probably deal more with those in the upper social class, but there might also be sections for those smaller towns and communities in the reading area dealing with 'the regular folk'.

Most of the time, this is where you can find birth announcements, wedding news, and death information. And if you have access to a local paper where a good section of your people reside, it can become a goldmine and wonderful research tool. I recently used the society and personal news columns of a town newspaper to find a family surname.

Edward had married twice - once to Nannie, who died in the 1880s, and again to Mollie in 1891. By Nannie, he had two children, one of whom (Julia) survived into adulthood and the other (Mary) died as an infant. The death notice for Mary said that her mother was R Nannie, but I did not have Nannie's surname.

In my researching, I had not yet found Edward's death date or burial site, nor did I have the same information for Nannie. I noticed recently that the digital newspaper resource that I subscribe to added the newspaper where the family initially lived, so off I went.

I never did find any information on Edward, but I eventually found a notation on Julia's death. I am hoping that an obituary for Julia in the larger city where she resided in adulthood will reveal where she is buried and hopefully will point me towards where her parents are buried.

Last weekend, I again entered Julia's name into the search and came across a hit in the personals that I had not noticed before - a reference to Julia and another woman (Ella) in town for their cousin's (Anna) funeral. I knew that Julia only had one current surviving cousin from her father's side of the family, so these had to be from her mother's side. Using these other womens' names as searching points, I finally was able to identify four sisters - R Nannie (Julia's mother), Mary (Ella's mother), Sarah (Anna's mother), and Julia. None of the information I had found, however, offered their birth surname.

Using the sister Julia, I then began searching the census for that town. I knew the approximate birth years of R Nannie and Sarah and used the census to find Mary's, as she had a very unique married surname. I pulled up every Julia in 1860 in that town to find a family that also included sisters R Nannie, Sarah, and Mary with the ages I had. It took about an hour to finally narrow down the family and surname. R Nannie was known/listed as Ruth Anna when growing up.

So now I have Edward's wife's full name - all thanks to a town newspaper's society and personals columns.