Newspapers were the main source of news - both international, national, and local - from the 1700s up the 1970s for many in the United States. For rural locations, the weekly local newspaper was read from beginning to end and allowed people to keep up on the comings and goings of the area. Each paper might have five or more "local news columns" - one for each hamlet, village, and town. In these columns a reader could learn who was sick, who was traveling, who had died, who was getting married, who had a party, who attended a party, and more.
While these local news columns may appear as "entertaining" or even "gossipy" to present day readers, understand that prior to the 1920s, there were few other entertainment options especially in rural locations. Technologies such as movies and radio had not yet taken over and reading about the "goings on" in the area served as the main form of discussion with friends and family members.
These columns are vital to genealogical research in small towns and contain information on life events that may not appear under birth notice or death notice columns, for example. In addition, researchers using the F.A.N. Club methodology can understand the social circles of an individual based on their activities noted in the local news.
Local news columns
For United States research, the time period 1880s to 1940s contained the most local news columns, usually published in regional weekly newspapers. The "author" or "reporter" was most often a woman, with her name right below the column title. Some columns from the 1950s and forward included the author's telephone number so readers could submit local news items.
Local news could mean anything and everything depending upon the newspaper and the author. The content was usually presented in short one or two sentence items such as "Mrs. John Hill is at home confined to bed with the flu" or "The Ralph Austin family is visiting Lowville from New York City and staying with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. William Dence."
Longer items usually were placed at the end of the column and would cover events such as a marriage or a death of a resident. The event information was not meant as a replacement for a formal announcement such as under the Marriages column or Death Notices. But the local news item would contain more information including names of attendees and details of any ceremony or location.
Types of information
- Social Notices: Marriages, engagements, births, deaths, visits from out-of-town relatives, club memberships, parties, etc.
- Travel: Trips taken providing clues about migration.
- Business: Store openings, land transactions, partnerships, and involvement in local businesses.
- Events: County or local fairs, sports competitions, annual events, livestock auctions.
Using information found in local news columns
- Establishing relationships: Connect individuals and piece together family connections.
- Timeline creation: News items can help create a clearer chronological narrative of a person's life events and help "fill in the gaps."
- Locating "lost" ancestors: Local news columns can help track down ancestors who may have moved or changed names.
- Determining social context and F.A.N. Club: Information illustrates the social context of ancestors' lives, detailing the environment they lived in. Gather clues related to the social network of an individual.
- Tracing movements and residences: Understand migration patterns and why an individual left one location or arrived in another.
- Uncovering businesses and occupations: Determine trades and occupations, business create and dissolution. Understand the industries of the location and the state of the local economy.
- Discovering vital events: Life events such as birth, engagement, marriage, and death that may not appear in typical notification sections.
- Piecing together family stories and anecdotes: Local news columns are great for verifying family stories or even invalidating them through news entries.
Terminology and presentism
An important concept to keep in mind when reading local news columns and gathering information: a different vocabulary was often used to describe events, locations, occupations, and actions.
This means a "sugaring off party" listed in the local news for a small town in update New York might require further research to understand that it was a party to celebrate maple syrup and sugar season.[1] This occurred from late February through March each year when sap was collected from maple trees and boiled down into syrup and sugar.
Archaic medical terms like "consumption" were often used to describe the illness "tuberculosis." If someone worked as a "farrier" they were a blacksmith who tended to horses.
Avoid the trap of "presentism" and assume that the same vocabulary used in the 21st century would be used in local news columns from the 1880s to the 1940s.
Accessing local news columns
Local news columns can be found in historical newspapers. Here are some access points for genealogy research:
- Historical newspapers: Access online databases for historical newspapers using the search term "local news." Also try the name of the town plus the term "local news," as in "Lowville local news."
- Local libraries and historical societies: Many archives, libraries, and repositories have bound volumes of historical newspapers from the region as well as digitized versions on microfilm or microfiche.
See also
References
- ↑ THE SUGARING OFF. The Clark