Read About It In the News

I am participating in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, a writing challenge encouraging genealogy researchers to write about their ancestors. The challenge is hosted by genealogist, blogger and podcaster Amy Johnson Crow.

Here's my post for Amy's Week Thirteen prompt: In the News

By Nancy Gilbride Casey

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

Who knew you could read all about your own family? Back in the day, the newspaper could spill all the family secrets, let you know the comings and goings of family members, reveal who was going to court or was selling land, who died and who was getting married. Fortunately for us, newspapers can reveal a lot about a family.

Newspaper research has become a staple of my family history work, helping me find clues to piece together family stories or answer research questions.

Some of the very first news clippings I found announced the terrible fates of two family members. One was my great grandfather John Joseph Gilbride, who died from burns sustained in a boiler explosion at the Aetna Rubber Co. in Cleveland, on 23 July 1937. The story was widely reported around Ohio and Pennsylvania, as it was picked up on the news wires.

Lima News, 23 July 1937

New Castle News, 23 July 1937. 

Sandusky Star Journal, 23 July 1937

The other discusses my great aunt Anna Simonik, older sister to my grandmother Margaret Simonik Kozlina. Anna died of "sleeping sickness," a type of encephalitis more scientifically known as "encephalitis lethargica," which rendered its victims in a catatonic state. I had no idea that my grandmother lost her sister in this way, and the pain it caused her family was evident in the many memorial tributes they ran each year in the newspaper.

An original clipping on Anna's death kept in a Simonik family scrapbook, from The Morning Herald, Uniontown, Pennsylvania, 9 May 1933. (Clipping, Author's personal collection)

Above and below, In Memoriam notices the Simonik family ran in the local paper on the first and fifth anniversary of Anna's death. (Clippings, Author's personal collection)

In this article, I found out that my grandfather Joseph Gilbride, acted in a play back in the 1930s, called "The Colleen Bawn," It was sponsored by the "Benjamin Franklin Council of the American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic," and was performed at Public Hall in Downtown Cleveland. I also love that the proceeds of the production were given to the Irish Cultural Garden being constructed in Wade Park, and that our grandfather contributed a small part to its creation.

Grandpa Gilbride's name (bottom of column 1), is accompanied by his home address, making it easy to verify that it was truly him in the production. (The Plain Dealer, 1939)

This small notice in thw Uniontown Evening Standard, provided the answer to the question of exactly when my grandparents moved from Uniontown, Pennsylvania to Cleveland, Ohio, as well as where Grandpa Kozlina had found work:

Uniontown Evening Standard (Uniontown, Pennsylvania), 17 August 1943 details that Grandma, Mom and my Uncle Tom left for Cleveland to join Grandpa.

Here is a fascinating account of the wedding of Jim's great grandparents, William Roy Stephen and Dessie Stallings, published in The Dublin Progress (Dublin, Texas), April 8, 1910. I have been on a search to find the original article quoted in this piece, published in The Pecos Valley Irrigationist, but it has so far eluded me.

Here is a somewhat hilarious account of some trouble stirred up at a neighborhood wedding attended by my great grandmother Margaret McAndrew Gilbride, as reported in The Scranton Republican, 15 Aug 1913.

Clarence, noted above, is Grandpa Gilbride's older brother. I believe the baby referenced is Grandpa.

Finally, one recent newspaper found in Scranton's Albright Library research room, was a goose bump-inducing discovery which conclusively proved a family relationship I'd been researching for more than a year. In this brief obituary, the names of my great grandfather John Gilbride's Scranton-born half-siblings were noted, and there lay the proof that he was related to all the children born to his father Michael Gilbride and his father's second wife Mary Gallagher.

Obituary for my great grandfather John Joseph Gilbride, published in The Scranton Times, 24 July 1937.

Check back often to see what other items on our families I find "In the News."

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Until next time...