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Genealogy Class - Searching Newspapers and Obituaries

Event Type: Adults
Age Group(s): Adults
Date: 9/27/2017
Start Time: 7:00 PM
End Time: 8:30 PM
Description:
 Gwen Kelley, a librarian who specializes in genealogy and local history, will lead a seminar that focuses on the importance of newspapers and obituaries for family researchers at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 27, at the East Bank Regional Library, 4747 W. Napoleon, Metairie.

This event is free of charge and is open to the public. There is no registration.

Newspapers have been published on a regular basis in North America since 1704 since the four-page Boston News-Letter made its debut. After the American Revolution, as communities grew, local news became increasingly important for the newspapers. No longer was everyone familiar with what was happening locally. In the early 1800s, death notices began to increase, but they were seldom more than a simple notice: the deceased's name, age, and residence were usually all one could find in these early years.

The traditional biographical obituary, with which we are so familiar, primarily developed after the U.S. Civil War. As the interest in local news grew, newspapers added more and more information and a wider range of people to their traditional death notices. While there will not be an obituary on every person who died in the latter half of the 1800s, researchers will find them for a very large number of the adults, especially those who had been resident in a community for a number of years.

They are valuable because they contain the following genealogical information.
• Name of the deceased
• Age and/or birth date
• Residence
• Spouse and children's names
• Other survivors: siblings, aunts and uncles, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, etc.
• Cause of death
• Occupation
• Religious membership/Church affiliation
• Fraternal or social memberships
• Past social or government positions
• Migration (when they settled in the local community)
• Birth town, even in foreign countries
• Parent's names
• Funeral arrangements
• Cemetery of burial
• Noteworthy life events (such as military service)
• Information on grandparents and ancestry
• and a host of other possible information

For more information regarding this event, contact Chris Smith, Manager of Adult Programming for the library, at (504) 889-8143 or wcsmith@jplibrary.net.

Library: East Bank Regional Library    Map
Location: Jefferson & Napoleon Rooms
Contact: Gwen Kelley
Contact Number: 504-838-1100
Presenter: Gwen Kelley