That’s the question I had to answer. One of my distant cousins, Catherine McSweegan, daughter of Thomas McSweegan and Catherine Kelly, married a man named B.F. Baddeley. That “B.F.” drove me crazy. What did it stand for? I researched different records to see if I could uproot his first and middle name. I eventually found…
Category: Newspaper Research
That’s Old News: Can National Events Affect A Marriage?
I’ve been doing alot of newspaper research later…I mean ALOT! I don’t think any type of research I’ve done in the last year or so has been as rewarding as searching newspapers online. The ability to find relatives through keyword searches opens up a whole world of stories beyond birth, death, and marriage records. I…
That’s Old News: Protecting A Woman’s Reputation?
In doing research in the Oakland Tribune, I came across this item under a section on saloon/liquor updates. The section was devoted to inspections on saloons, licenses applied for and the status, and different regulations. This was Oakland, Alameda County, California, 1907. I find it funny that businesses that served alcohol had to be equipped…
First Lucky Break of the Year
I wanted to start off the new year with some family tree research. I had fooled around for awhile looking for a death notice for Catherine (Dolan) Kelly, but had no success. I came back after dinner and took up John Joseph Jones–a name with impossible to research written all over it. Through census and…
Tombstones Can Have Errors, Too: Part One
Recently, a volunteer at Findagrave.com sent my photographs of my Kelly family tombstone at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, CA. Not only was my Great Great Grandmother’s name on the stone, but a couple of her sons. I was disappointed to find that Michael Kelly was not the Michael Kelly that I had been tracking…