| Unfolding Family Stories in Newspapers |
| Every time I discover something intriguing about my family history, I ask myself, “Could this have been reported in newspapers?” Then I go look. It’s getting easier: over a billion total newspaper pages are now searchable at the five largest U.S. newspaper databases: Chronicling America, Fulton History, GenealogyBank, NewspaperArchive and Newspapers.com. In my new Family Tree Magazine article, I’ve compared these sites to each other. Each has its own tremendous strengths, which you’ll want to read about for yourself so you can decide which you want to explore next. Here’s an extra tip: because they were story-telling records, newspapers sometimes answer questions only hinted at in other genealogical documents. I knew my grandfather’s cousin Anna had two sons who survived serving in World War II only to die too soon after returning home. Newspapers gave me more of the stories. Son John E. Hebel, age 25, married his sweetheart…and died less than 3 weeks later in a car accident on the Snoqualmie Pass Highway in Washington (which the death certificate told me). On Newspapers.com, I learned his car skidded into oncoming traffic on a “rain-slick” highway and caused a 3-car pileup. His young bride and two other passengers in the car were seriously injured. (See the image here. Source: The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Washington), 16 Aug 1948, p. 11; www.Newspapers.com, accessed 8 April 2021) Anna’s son Clarence, age 38, died just seven years later. Cause of death: “airplane crash followed by 100% cremation.” A series of newspaper articles unfolded the story over time, just as Anna herself likely learned the truth. A missing plane. A hopeful wife who traveled from Tacoma to Montana to rally search parties with confident expressions of hope. A full year passed before the wreckage was discovered and reported. The crash had been a fiery inferno; Clarence and his traveling companions had been sitting between the gas tanks. Two deep losses for Anna and her family. One sudden and brutal, just after a wedding. The other, a loss that lingered without answers for over a year. The details in the newspapers turned the tragedies summed up in the death certificates into detailed, relatable stories that meant more than dates on a tree. |
