I’ve missed a couple of weeks of Amy Johnson Crow’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, but I’m working on catching up. The prompt for week 7 is ‘Favorite Discovery’. I’ve had many ‘favorite discoveries through the years. My favorite discovery tends to be my most recent discovery. About a year ago it was the discovery that my father’s bachelor uncle had been married. A few months ago it was the discovery that my great-grandfather’s sister had married her second cousin; his paternal grandfather was a brother to her paternal grandmother! I'll post more about that later.
My most recent favorite discovery isn’t a specific person, but instead is a source! Newspapers.com had a free weekend for Presidents Day. I didn’t really expect much because I can access the site for free from home with my library card, but this also included the Plus edition. Still, I really didn’t expect much because I’d had a subscription a couple of years ago and thought I’d exhausted my options there. But it was free, so I decided to give it a try. I started by searching for some of my Petrini cousins. I found a handful of obituaries in New York newspapers. I already had most of them from online obituaries, but I like to have the scan of the print edition when possible, so that was a plus. Not a huge discovery, but still nice.
Next I decided to search for my Weiss line. It is a large line, and I’ve been researching it for almost twenty years, so I didn’t expect to fine much. I started by searching for my grandfather’s cousin, Josie Weiss Shirk. I’d found her in the California Death Index about 15 years ago, so I knew she’d died in 1958 in Los Angeles. I’ve been looking for an obituary ever since, with no success. But this time…..there it was!
13 Mar 1958, Thu The Pomona Progress Bulletin (Pomona, California) Newspapers.com
