Do They Payout?
Life Insurance, worth it or a scam? In the spring of 2012, MetLife, amongst other insurance companies, was accused of selectively using research in the social security death benefits index to stop paying annuities, while at the same time,...
Read moreNewspaper Articles Run the Gamut from Births to Deaths
Genealogical research in newspapers runs the gamut from birth to death with everything in between up for grabs, marriages, divorces, desertions, bed and board notices, adoptions, etc. Reading the newspaper for an area of interest gives tons of details...
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Flitting Leaves Records
Moving Day Records Americans move, a lot, all over the country, every day. Utility bills, telegrams, school records, journals, cards, and letters can be sources of those moves. Those records are likely to be found in a family’s ephemerel...
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Dirty or Broken Type and Typesetting Mistakes Can Make Newspaper OCR Difficult
Digitized newspapers are a boon to genealogists, family historians and researchers, especially for the big three, births, marriages and deaths, folowed closely behind by divorces, separation, bed and board issues, court cases, flitting (the movement of renters on a...
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Genealogical and Historical Research and Presentation Quilts
Presentation quilts beg to be researched. All those names, inked or embroidered or both, mean a place of origin can be determined through census research. The why of the presentation may be harder to find. Family research and local...
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Local Stringers Extend the Circulation and Distribution Areas of Newspapers
Wouldn’t you love to research Romanus Ortlip? While looking for something else, I found the best name ever in the Reading Eagle. Reading, the county seat of Berks Co., Pennsylvania supported quite a few newspapers in their time. Because...
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Pesky Unknown Middle Names in Church Records
Catechumens from Trinity Reformed Church near Stouchsburg, Pennsylvania A top source for middle names is the series of Draft Registration Cards held by NARA available from Ancestry and others, for men in 1917 and 1918 for World War I. Even...
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Anniversary of Civil War Deployment of the Ringgold Light Artillery
In response to President Lincoln’s call for 75,000 volunteers, the Ringgold Light Artillery left Reading on April 16th 1861, the first troops to reach Harrisburg. The First Defenders association held a reunion April 16th 1885 in Reading, Pennsylvania celebrating...
Read moreAncestors Who Fought in the American Revolution May Be Found in Newspapers of a Later Date
Newspaper Research Just Keeps on Giving Don’t despair if your ancestor is not listed in the DAR annals or the Pension files at NARA. Those are the easy paths. Most of those men were either lucky enough to have...
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Moved to Colorado, Greeley’s Union Colony No. 1
Two Brothers and Two Sisters go West Newspapers are contemporaneous sources for court cases, property sales, fires, legal proceedings, deaths, marriages, births, robberies, injuries, nightly lockups, and even unclaimed letters. The Official List of Letters remaining in the Reading...
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