52 Ancestors Week 13: In the Paper

Question

Ready for Week 13 of the 52 Ancestors challenge?

Please share with us a profile of an ancestor or relative who matches the week's theme. This week's sharing prompt:

In the Paper

From Amy Johnson Crow:

Coming soon!

 

Share below!

Participants who share every week can earn badges. If this is your first time participating, or you don't have the participation badge, please post here. Click here for more about the challenge.

P.S. You can see your numbered ancestor list by clicking the Ancestor List link on your family tree and tools page. 

Comments

Oh dear, my ancestors were in the paper for the wrong reason. My 2x great grandparents Joseph Kilby https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Kilby-201 and his common law wife Esther https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Humphries-996 appeared at the Gloucester Quarter Sessions accused of stealing a piece of needlework and other articles. Joseph was acquitted but Esther was sentenced to 2 months hard labour. I wonder what happened to their children while they were "inside".

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Oh my goodness, Elizabeth. What information to find on your ancestors!

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Mine as well Elizabeth - when I found my birth family I found that my 'father' had been in prison after being caught robbing a grocery store and having a shoot out with the police. 

Answer 1

In the news, huh? Well, I have two people to cover this week. The first is pretty recent. So recent that I saw this ancestor last night at dinner. I'm talking about my dad, Dr. James Ferraiolo. My father is a dentist by trade and as such he has traveled around stressing how important dental health is for everyone. After all, dental health is part of overall health. He even went to my elementary school to talk about how important it is. And thus he was in the paper for this and another reason. My dad was a past president of the New Hampshire Dental Society. 

He was in the paper because he was part of several programs which promoted dental health and wellness. And he wants it known that he was not the 5th guy who didn't recommend Trident. My dad's sense of humor is weird. I wonder if I got it from him....Probably. =)

The other guy I want to talk about is on my mother's side and his name is John Sargent Fisher! I even have the article he was in on his profile page. He is a descendant of two Revolutionary War soldiers, Amos Sargent and Joseph Fisher. I have no idea why the article said "Silas". Whatever. This is why we have editors. Perry White and J. Jonah Jameson wouldn't have stood for that nonsense.

The reason why John was in the paper was because he was the oldest resident of Malden, Massachusetts at the time and was the oldest there to celebrate the town's 200th anniversary. That is pretty epic. The article said he came from patriotic stock. That's kinda obvious. He also served the Union in the Civil War and is one of only three Civil War soldiers I have in the tree. 

It seems he had been honored many times and enjoyed caring for his garden. I especially like that bit about checking out every book in the Malden library. I'll have to go there and see if there's a plaque or something about it. Check out the article. He clearly liked to read. 

https://www.wikitree.com/photo/jpg/Fisher-12229-1

I should get down to the Malden library at some point. It's only 43 minutes away. Perhaps he has a plaque there or something. Hard to say.

See ya next week! 

Answer 2

Not too exciting information on mine, but one of the early records I found on one of my ancestors was his obituary in the paper. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/McDaniel-4985

The obituary noted when he came to the area, that he was a Freemason and was buried with "full mason rites." (Bluffton Banner Newspaper, August 30, 1899, Pg. 1, Column 2)

Answer 3

Week 13 .. and my 13th week participating.  Do I get profile bling naow? 

In the paper .. .. hmmm ..

My great-great-grandfather (Samuel Gordon) was in the paper a couple of times: once when he got married, the other years before when he - at age 16 and his feet barely dry from his immigration voyage six months earlier - was the one to identify the (presumably mangled) body of one of his older brothers (John) who had been killed in a boiler explosion at a dry-dock, leaving a widow and two very small children..  There is nothing in the family records to say why he, the youngest of the family, was the one to do that, but do it he did.  (All his living brothers .. all of them older than he .. were also in Australia, so why the family "baby"?)  Then he appeared in court for the inquest; which is how he ended up having his name in the newspaper.

The story can be read here, in three parts:  the initial report: trove.nla.gov.au article 29th March 1865

Part two (wherein great-grand Sam is named) trove.nla.gov.au article 30th March 1865

Part three (pretty much the end of the sad tale, except for the families of the men who died): trove.nla.gov.au article 19th April 1865

Answer 4

On my g-grandmother’s profile...

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Lawing-72

...is an article that was written about her, including a little about her late husband, and her children. I was fortunate to inherit this from her son, my grandfather who looked after her the 13 years between g-Grandpa’s death and hers in 1936.

Answer 5

This is my 13th week participating in the challenge!

One of my wife's cousins asked me if I could find any information about Liz Kernohan because one of his relatives named Kernohan was living on Liz Kernohan Drive in Camden, NSW, Australia and wanted to know if he was related. I was able to document a lot of her family tree back to Scotland and Ireland but wasn't able to make a connection to other Kernohan families in Ireland due to the lack of Irish sources.

One of the sources I used was this newspaper article about the opening of Liz Kernohan Drive.

Answer 6

My great great grandfather Edward McCauley Long https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Long-12240# was murdered one evening on 10 July 1879 as he was coming home from work. He was shot in the back as he was on horseback crossing the Missouri River Bridge going home to Atchison, Kansas. Several of my family members and I have a packet of papers that are photo copies of newspaper articles from the Daily Champion, Atchison, Kansas Newspaper and the St. Joseph Daily Gazette Newspaper, as the murder trial went on for weeks without a definite conclusion. This is all rather sad, as this seems to be what my family remembers about him. I proudly have put on his profile his sterling merit records in the Civil War and his work as a carriage maker in hopes that he will not just be remembered from what was in the newspapers.

Answer 7

It was just a few days before Christmas 2017 when my cousin in Serbia called us just to chat, he had to talk. His cousin from his maternal side was just murdered. In Serbian papers I read some more details about what happened.

Answer 8

I'm sharing the profile of my first cousin twice removed Bertie Faulkner.

Bertie studied at Trinity College, Dublin and became an Anglican minister in the Church of Ireland at St Mary's, Belfast in 1924.  He appeared in newspaper articles on numerous occasions, mainly because he received a valediction from his old parish when he was posted to a new parish location.

One early article is as follows:
"Rev. R. H. Faulkner, B.A., senior curate of St. Mary’s Parish Church, Belfast, has received important appointment as a rector at Craighurst, near Toronto, from the Bishop of Ontario. He sails at the end of August." (Belfast Newsletter, 26 July 1928)

Later in his career the following was published:
"Macosquin's New Rector. A service was held in Camus-Juxta-Bann (Macosquin) Parish Church, Coleraine, for the induction Rev. R. H. Faulkner, M.A. who was recently appointed rector."
(Northern Whig, Belfast, 29 July 1933)

Answer 9

This is also my 13th week participating! 

When my dad, Bob Boy (who would have been 86 today) was pastor at the Harrogate - Arthur charge in the Cumberland Gap area in the late 1970s, he wrote a general interest column for one of the local weekly papers. I remember one story he wrote was about the time his dad wanted him and his friend to help clear stumps out of a field at the farm. If I remember correctly they used a bit more dynamite on some of the stumps than was really necessary! I believe my mom still has copies of the articles in a filing cabinet (at least I hope she does.) 

His dad, Rob Boy, also got mentioned in the social pages when he was an eligible bachelor. Once he settled down on the farm he became known for his watermelons. He brought home multiple blue ribbons from the local fairs. He would sell them out of his garage every year and truck some to the local schools. In 1973, Howard Sawyer of the Bristol Herald Courier wrote an article about him and his watermelons after he had entered four in the Gray fair that year. Two of them had weighed in at 72 and 67 pounds. He would typically grow a couple of different varieties each year. 

Comments

great pic!

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It is an awesome watermelon picture, no doubt!

Answer 10

My relative in the news is Olive Beatrice Mayoh, later Gilchrist. After her marriage she was a member of the Townsville Verse Speaking Choir and had the privilege of meeting Banjo Paterson.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Mayoh-6

Answer 11

She isn't a relative of mine, but the last few days I've been researching Mary Osborn Douthit, an early 20th-century suffragette and educator popular in the Pacific Northwest.

While she has the standard life documents you might expect like birth, death, and census records, she was never married and had no children limiting the depth of her life you can glean from these records. 

Instead, I've had to turn to local papers and archives to get more information on her life. She is a published author, but one of her books remains elusive to me. Because she is local to me, I'm hoping I'll be able to find more information on her at local libraries and historical societies. 

Answer 12

Well, here we are in week 13, and though it hasn't always been easy, I've made it so far.  

My Newspaper contribution is about my 2nd cousin four times removed, David Hurst Sloan. He wrote an article in 1926 that was published about being born in a log cabin in Pennsylvania in 1855 and about life at that time. It was for a contest in a local newspaper about log cabins, and was published in 1926 and reprinted in 2016. There is no information as to how David did in the competition but I thought it was quite good and gives interesting information about life on a farm in the 1800s. Here is the link to the article on WikiTree: https://www.wikitree.com/photo/jpg/Sloan-2863 

Answer 13

My grandma, Helen, was a smart cookie.  She knew she had a piece of history in her hands when she saved the "Dewey Defeats Truman" newspaper.  It's a different type of family heirloom.

Answer 14

This is my 13th challenge.

My maternal great great grandma, Ellen White Benham Edwards lived in a small town in Oregon.  It seems that everything was in the paper then.  Numerous family visits and a "Bicycle Picnic" were all recorded in the local paper.  My Grandma shared a lot of details with me about her Grandma and their relationship. It really makes me I wish I could have known her.   

Answer 15

The lateset relation in the news was my 2nd cousin Muriel  unfortunately it was the announcement of her passing last month following a long period os illness

My she rest in Peace

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Harris-22962

Answer 16

52 Ancestors Week 13: In the Paper and this is my 13th week participating!

I was so excited when I found this information while researching my mother's side of the family. 

I started out researching my husband's side (Hess family) because they had such early roots in my hometown, so it was fun when I found my grandmother's grandfather's will in an old paper. My grandmother was Minnie Leinen, her father was William Junker, Sr., and his dad was Herman Junker Junker-134.

Herman was born in 31 Jul 1840 in Germany and he came to the United States in 1866. He married Sophie Ohlenkamp, they had 11 children, and in 1900 they were living in Momence, Illinois. Sophie died in 1907, and he married Mary Schultz in 1918.

He died 15 Jan 1926 in Yellowhead Township (Momence), Illinois.  

18 Jan 1926 his will was printed in the Kankakee Republic.

After I read his will, I learned so much about my gg-grandfather. I didn't know he had been married twice, or that my grandmother was in his will.

I also learned from my mother that before any money was distributed, the banks failed, and all of his money was lost. The only thing left was his land.

I know that I am very lucky to have found this, and so much more information about my maternal gg-grandfather.

Comments

Something to be said for keeping some of it in land and burying a few gold coins in the back yard ;-)

Interesting article!

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Thank you for your comments, SJ. I am glad you enjoyed reading his will.

Answer 17

I'm re-using this one from the "Funny" category because it was also in the papers. Yeah, that's me at 20 with the silly grin and the puppy-dog tilt of the head. *sigh*

Answer 18

The people of my family are skilled with their hands.  Both my grandfather (woodworking) and my father (blacksmithing) have had newspaper articles written about their abilities. 

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bernier-396

 "Sixty years a 'smithin': Rochester craftsman continues ironclad hobby" 

Answer 19

I wrote about my 2x great grand father who had his hogs stolen, resulting in a humorous police chase.

https://genealogybyjanelle.blogspot.com/2019/03/in-paper-william-fredrich-carls-and-hog.html

Comments

Love it, Janelle!

Answer 20

My grandfather, Harold "Hal" Knott Rammel, was a newspaper guy all his working life.  It unfortunately was a life too short ... he was only 38 at the DOD.

For several years he was the Editor of the Daily Press in Escanaba, Delta, Michigan. 

During those years he wrote a humorous column that was based on largely embellished activities of the members of his family.  His pen name for the column was "Abner Bangs, Esq".

Just before his untimely death, he had signed a contract to syndicate his column at the national level.  But time ran out.

Below is a sign Hal had hanging at the entrance to his small cabin on Lake Michigan about 10 miles from Escanaba.  The sign now hangs above the door to my small office in my home.

Comments

Also, this is the 13th week that I have submitted an answer to this challenge!!