Checking through family funeral reports in newspapers

[Margaret in Burton]

In my late father in laws possessions there were several old newspaper cuttings of family events, not in good condition either. There is one for his mothers funeral in 1960 and I have spent all day trying to sort out who six nieces were, it was in their married names of course and I didn't have a clue, also who all the people were who sent floral tributes.

Found all of the nieces, who now have husbands in my Family Tree Maker and are soon to acquire children and deaths. LOL :d:d

I still have one to go on the floral tributes but it will give me loads more names to go on.

It's spurred me on to do more research, I have been neglecting it recently.

[Olde Crone]

Margaret

I have the very long obituary of my GGF from The Manchester Guardian, which was a national newspaper.

Good job I already knew the family tree otherwise I would have spent fruitless hours searching for the "three sisters who survived him" - they were in fact his sisters-in-law, who lived with him.

On another tack, I have the will of a great great aunt, who left me some money when she died. she also left money to "my nephew Edwin Wood"...trouble is there is no NEPHEW called Edwin Wood, but rather too many great nephews called Edwin Wood!

OC

[Margaret in Burton]

It was in the back of my mind OC that they could have been great nieces but I have found them all now.

Just struggling with Jack, Alice and David on the floral tributes now. They weren't actually at the funeral just sent flowers, so no surname to go on.

[Kit]

Thats a great find Margaret. Good luck in the search. Long wedding announcements are good too, if you can find them.

If I could just mention that Some Aussie papers are now online

http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/home

which is a good way to search for death notices and anything really. Just be prepared for a shock or 2. I found out something potentially shocking about OH's greandfather and 2 horrid deaths for my family.

[Gert in Oz]

Looking at a newspaper clipping of my great grandfathers funeral in 1895 (Derby), in the hopes it might give me some clue as to breaking my brick wall down on him, i have figured out some of the people, but who on earth was Mr and Mrs Taylor and family of Scarborough, i have no idea.

Good luck with finding yours Marg.

[Merry]

I seem to have gradually inherited quite a few newspaper cuttings. I even have one where someone has bothered to write the date on it :rolleyes:. I don't have any that state which newspaper they are from. As most of them are from the last couple of generations I have been able to identify why the paper was kept (sometimes more than one article/death notice etc) through personal family knowledge, but there are still some I have no idea about. Very frustrating, just like the endless un-named photos.

[ElizabethHerts]

Merry, my gran and my mother both had the wonderful and simultaneously annoying habit of cutting out family BMD announcements from the newspapers.

Wonderful, because I have a record of someone's birth, marriage or passing, but annoying because it is always just their announcement, not the page or even part of the page of the newspaper, so that you have no idea when the newspaper was published!:(

[Kit]

Merry I sympathise, you too Elizabeth.

I have found the odd clipping with no identifying dates or paper names but have been able to solve them, or totally wiped them from my mind.

To have lots of unidentifyable clippings would be annoying.

As for photos Mum has a box and I have a suitcase full of unlabelled photos. Even better are ones labelled something like "Herbert". No idea who the people are, if they are related and in the case of my suitcase, no one alive to ask.

[Margaret in Burton]

This particular clipping was in such bad condition that I have had to stick it to a piece of paper. It looked like it had been torn out of the paper not cut and was in four pieces, some of them tiny. There was also a wedding pic that had been printed in the paper, also in about four pieces and again torn out. Luckily I have the original photo as I have had to throw that away.

As for photos :mad: :mad:, I remember asking mother in law years ago why she didn't write on the back of photos who they were, her reply was "well we know who they are".

Well she might have done, but those who come after her don't. Grrrrrrrrrr

[Merry]

Even better are ones labelled something like "Herbert". No idea who the people are, if they are related and in the case of my suitcase, no one alive to ask.

Oooh, Kit, maybe you know who Ben, Sam and Leonard are? Ben is the one with a bandage round his left index finger (if only he had spent more time writing less about his finger and more about his own name :mad:) and he wrote the postcard (WW1) to aunt Lucy (no surname or address). What about 'my grandmother' (we think we know who wrote that, but don't know which grandmother it is!)

*Checks trunk for photos of Herbert* - I'm sure we have one too!

[Olde Crone]

MUCH better than that, I have "Herbert" (my grandfather) "on the beach". When? Where?

"Herbert and friend in festive mood" captions a photo of my grandfather wearing a silly hat and even sillier grin, accompanied by unknown friend. Who, when, where?

"A sunny day at Coulsdon" shows five women sitting round a picnic rug. Maybe they are relatives, maybe not, who knows!

OC

[Phoenix]

MUCH better than that, I have "Herbert" (my grandfather) "on the beach". When? Where?

"Herbert and friend in festive mood" captions a photo of my grandfather wearing a silly hat and even sillier grin, accompanied by unknown friend. Who, when, where?

"A sunny day at Coulsdon" shows five women sitting round a picnic rug. Maybe they are relatives, maybe not, who knows!

OC

Is there madness in the family, OC? Picnicing in Coulsdon? Or am I being very parochial, and there is a Coulsdon which isn't in Surrey?

[Olde Crone]

Genteel insanity, Phoenix and yep, it's THAT Coulsdon, in Surrey.

OC

[Kit]

I have to confess I don't have a photo of "Herbert", I just used a name as an example. I do have a wedding photo of Albert and Mavis, although I think I know who they are.

I don't have Ben, Sam or Leonard photos though.

I do have useful ones that say where the photo was taken and even the year but not who was in it.

I've just had a thought though. Thanks Margaret for starting this thread.

I am in contact with the stepdaughter of the suitcase owner's cousin. It's a stretch but who knows who she heard about. I'm going to pull the suitcase out and find out those random names and ask.

[Merry]

I have had the situation where I have an old Victorian photo and know which part of the tree it belongs to but not who it is and then meet a cousin who has a photo of the same person (in one case, the same photo) and they DO know who it is! This must have happened to me........oooooh, maybe three times in 20 years!! (I have around 1,000 'unknown' Victorian photos!)