Here’s the next in my occasional series of bite-size Quick Tips. Click on the Quick Tips tag for my other Quick Tips. Because I tend to write longer posts, I wanted to provide a quick-to-read (and quick-to-write) post every couple of weeks on a small topic that pops into my head. I often find myself glad that I’ve paid attention to a small detail!
Ignore nothing
I’ve been doing my share of newspaper research lately. (I treated myself to a six-month subscription to Publisher Extra on newspapers.com recently.) When I do a newspaper search on my relatives I often unearth tiny mentions of them that seem unimportant and not worth the time to download and process.
I’ve learned that these small mentions can be important additions my research and that I shouldn’t ignore them. Case in point: I downloaded an article from the Owensburg Owensboro (Kentucky) Messenger-Inquirer from 16 Jun 1903 that offered a single sentence about my great grandfather: “Mr. Elmer Adams’ horse ran off Sunday morning and tore his buggy all to pieces.” (It was part of a larger article full of single-sentence updates about residents of Sacramento, McLean, Kentucky including a mention of Elmer’s mother’s funeral.)
I’m so glad I downloaded it because later, when I was trying to figure out when Elmer moved his family from Kentucky to Oregon where my grandfather was born in 1904, this became a data point on my timeline. It helped me narrow down when he might have left Kentucky.
Now I remind myself to go ahead and take a few minutes to download each piece of information I find (in a newspaper or elsewhere), no matter how trivial it may seem at that moment. It just might come in handy later!
Oh, my goodness! I hope Elmer wasn’t on his way to his mother’s funeral when his horse ran off and tore his buggy all to pieces! Even worse, I hope his mother wasn’t in the buggy at the time (living or dead)!
Oh my goodness, Hazel, I didn’t think of that! Your comment made me take another look–my first glance at the article today (which I hadn’t looked at recently) made me think the Mrs. George Adams whose funeral was that day was Elmer’s mother. But in fact she died seven months earlier. So it was another Mrs. Adams who was getting buried. I’m going to leave my post uncorrected because I think this is a great little lesson on reading carefully!
As a native of Owensboro and a former employee of the Messenger-Inquirer, I must note that the town is Owensboro and not Owensburg 🙂
But I COMPLETELY agree with your bigger point. Small, seemingly unimportant off-handed items in a newspaper can break down major brick walls
Oh for heaven’s sake, I cannot believe I messed that up. My apologies to Owensboro, a town I’ve visited more than once. I’ve fixed it! (In my defense, I was writing in an extremely distracting environment. :))
Thanks for your comment, Greg (and I’m glad you’re in agreement with my point!).