Have you ever gone looking for an obituary in a newspaper to get additional information on a person’s life and family only to find it locked behind a paywall?
While many newspapers are available for free on various archival sites like Internet Archive, Chronicling America, and Small Town Papers, some newspapers are only available with a paid subscription, also known as a paywall.
The most frequently used and well known paid newspaper archival site is Newspapers.com. While they are under the Ancestry corporate umbrella, they do require a separate subscription.
I certainly understand how frustrating this roadblock can be during the research process. Especially when you are able to see a preview of the obituary and know it has something you are looking for.
Recently, this was the exact situation I found myself in.
So today, I want to share with you my research path for locating and obtaining these obituaries for free.
Most of the time.
This is not guaranteed to work, and it will vary from situation to situation, but below I have outlined a rather detailed account, using a real-life situation I encountered, of my typical research path to obtain these obituaries for free.
Backstory:
While on a recent family vacation to South Dakota, we stopped in at the Nemo Cemetery so I could take pictures and wander around. The grave covering for one individual, Tracey Schmitz, caught my eye as it had a beautiful poem inscribed on the top of it.
I noticed that her father was buried next to her and photographed both. I was able to upload pictures of their headstones to FindAGrave.
Recently, I’ve also been doing some cemetery categorization work over at WikiTree and decided to add the cemetery to the site for practice. I also wanted to add their profiles to the site to help see how it all fits together, so I went in search of information to aid in building a short biography for these individuals.
Research Path:
Once I am ready to research, I begin with what I know. I have a name, Tracey D Schmitz, and dates of birth and death: October 26, 1956 – June 09, 1984. I also knew she was buried in Nemo Cemetery in Nemo, South Dakota.
First, I do a cursory internet search on Google just to see what is available. Sometimes you get lucky and can easily find an obituary. However, being that this person passed away several decades ago, the likelihood of finding it online so easily was slim.
With no results after quickly scanning the first handful of internet search results, I then move on to more specialized sites I can search for free: FindAGrave, FamilySearch, and Ancestry.
Looking at her Find A Grave, there is a reference to the obituary, “from the Index to Obits in the Rapid City Journal, obit is in the June 11 paper, no place of death given,” but no further information.
From here, I went to browse the index at Chronicling America to see if they have an archive of Rapid City Journal available online. They do not.
Next, I went to Ancestry to see if a user might have uploaded a copy of the obituary. On Ancestry, you are usually able to search for free, with some information in the results removed, but are rarely ever able to view a search result without having an active paid subscription to Ancestry. To get around this, I am able to access Ancestry for free from my library card. Many libraries offer free Ancestry access. I am not able to save anything to my personal tree, but I can still download images of census records or family photos and I can view other family trees.
In the Ancestry search, I found a link to the Rapid City Genealogy Society that does look-ups in the Rapid City Journal, and even had the obituary I needed, but asks or a donation in return. I’m not opposed to this, I’m just on a budget and a few dollars here and there will quickly add up in the long run.
So far I've exhausted several of my go-to resources and I know I will not be able to obtain this obituary without forking over money. At this point, I will turn to others for community help. There are a few places I do this at:
r/Genealogy will post a weekly Paid Record Look Up Requests Thread on Sundays where users can ask other users to lookup something from a paywall site. However, because I was doing this research on a Thursday, there was a greater likelihood of my request not being fulfilled due to lack of activity in the thread.
I decide Facebook Groups will probably be my best bet for this step and head over to ask in a couple different groups. The first I ask in is the Free Obituary Look-Ups group. They are organized by state and are usually fairly responsive, but require you to know exactly what you are looking for before you ask. The second group I go to for assistance is South Dakota Genealogy Network. Here I ask if someone with a paid account can do a lookup for me and also post the information.
Now I wait.
This may take a few days sometimes, but it usually gets done sooner rather than later. Today I was lucky and my request was answered within ten minutes of posting to the Facebook group.
This research took me about 45 minutes to complete, including interruptions from a toddler. The great thing that I love about this research path is that it showcases so many different resources.
Genealogy is filled with so many great resources but finding and utilizing them is another challenge all itself. My top three tips for keeping resources organized are:
- Start by Organizing
- Keep Research Records
- Use Bookmarks
I'll cover these tips more in depth at a later date and give examples of how I do each step.
What are your favorite research resources?
How many resources do you use while researching?
It may seem like just a couple were used after you've completed the research, but when you look back at your research path it is often far greater than expected. This research outlined above, for instance, may have used Facebook to ask someone to use their Newspapers account, we still accessed Google, FindAGrave, Newspapers, Chronicling America, Ancestry, the Rapid City Genealogy Society, Reddit, and Facebook.
To help with organizing resources, I’ve created a page here to list these resource sites that I find, both big and small, and organized them roughly by state.
I created this resource because I had a huge bookmark folder of research resources that I wanted to easily share with others. Go check it out and let me know what I’m missing!
- Patricia
For several years fellow blogger Amy Johnson Crow has been running a genealogy challenge that has seen increased popularity in the last couple years. Over on WikiTree, they have decided to pick up this challenge and issue a weekly open-ended prompt on the message boards. Each prompt is designed for members to discuss and respond with an ancestor or story that fits with that week’s prompt. In addition to answering over on WikiTree's G2G forum, I'll also be answering here in a more complete form.
The only son of James David Spradlin and Georgia Etta Ross, Lyman departed Oran, Missouri on May 10, 1918 for training in Waco, Texas. After several weeks of training, Lyman departed from Hoboken, New Jersey on August 03, 1918 headed for the French battlefields. Injured by shrapnel on September 27, he died six days later on October 03, 1918.
His initial burial was in France and the American Red Cross sent a sympathy card to the family with a photo of his grave enclosed. After the end of the war, many of the fallen soldiers were returned home and Lyman was included in this. Departing Antwerp, Belgium June 19 and arriving in Hoboken, New Jersey on July 02, Lyman was finally welcomed home in Oran, Missouri on Saturday, August 06, 1921.
His funeral was the next day at his family home attended by the Oran National Guard, his family, and the community. Burial followed in Friends Hill Cemetery in Oran, Missouri.
Since researching him, I’ve often felt as if he was just caught up in the war, not really meaning to go or thinking they’d need him as he was married and supported his family. His death saddens me and researching the Meuse-Argonne Offensive and the Lost Battalion, occurring just days after his death, has been a stark reminder of the terrors of war.
- Patricia
For several years fellow blogger Amy Johnson Crow has been running a genealogy challenge that has seen increased popularity in the last couple years. Over on WikiTree, they have decided to pick up this challenge and issue a weekly open-ended prompt on the message boards. Each prompt is designed for members to discuss and respond with an ancestor or story that fits with that week’s prompt. In addition to answering over on WikiTree's G2G forum, I'll also be answering here in a more complete form.
The topic of “Nature” for this week’s challenge is keeping with the springtime theme from last week. I nearly had a tie for this week’s spotlight but wanted to bring back a showcase on my father. When the challenge began, I was certain I would end up repeating more ancestors and I only have one repeat nearly halfway through.
Both my father and my maternal grandmother were big influences on my love of gardening. My grandmother was known for her beautifully manicured flower beds, tea areas, and lawn. Nearly all her free time was spent on these beautiful flower beds and tea areas.
My father, on the other hand, was more of a straightforward gardener. I can recall rows of corn, carrots, green beans, peppers, and tomatoes. We also had peach and plum trees scattered around the yard and were blessed to have an old Texas pecan tree, as well. Dad would go all out on his roses, though. That was his one ornamental plant he really enjoyed and would wait all year getting ready for a new addition the following year.
Now that I’ve established a little family of my own, we’ve taken out a community garden plot and have made a point to continue this tradition. I definitely take more after my father in gardening styles with lots of veggies planted and plenty of help from little hands. We have a few flowers on the back porch, but most of our effort goes into productive gardening that will help supplement our veggie intake.
- Patricia
For several years fellow blogger Amy Johnson Crow has been running a genealogy challenge that has seen increased popularity in the last couple years. Over on WikiTree, they have decided to pick up this challenge and issue a weekly open-ended prompt on the message boards. Each prompt is designed for members to discuss and respond with an ancestor or story that fits with that week’s prompt. In addition to answering over on WikiTree's G2G forum, I'll also be answering here in a more complete form.
For week 19 we have an aptly named springtime theme of "Nurture".
I've been in the garden full-time this past week and it has been nice to see the rewards already showing from that. This week's prompt is a perfect reflection of this time of year and the prime candidate popped into mind.
Here, you can see Charles Wajdak on the right posing in front of his home for best lawn award. In addition to this gem of American life, I've found numerous articles about him visiting ailing family, raising his children, and various exploits from his fishing days along the Texas coast.
Over the last week, I had a trial to Newspapers.com and took advantage of it by searching out unique family names. Charles Wajdak was an easy target for his unique last name, and I was happy to find so many articles about him and his family.
I’m not big on subscription services, especially when most of the information they have can be found for free with a bit of legwork. However, the free trial periods to websites are a great way to take advantage of their convenience without getting committed to a high-priced service that is generally not worth the investment.
What are some of the things you've discovered in old newspapers about your family?
- Patricia
In our modern, electronic world we have come to rely on vital records like birth and death certificates to be accurate, infallible sources of information. We use these documents to identify ourselves, gain employment, attend school, travel, and so much more. How could these goverment documents have incorrect information entered onto them?
This is not a conspiracty theory, but rather a logical fallacy. We seem to have this idea that due of the importance of the document, we hold the document in higher regard in our research than other first-hand sources.
We depend upon these accurate vital records to assist in completing our genealogical research. But let’s face it: Records are not always accurate.
I have two examples to share that demonstrate this point. One is straight forward while the other is a bit complicated.
Grab a tasty beverage and settle in while we examine these not-so-accurate records.
Example 1:
First, we have my father’s death certificate.
Several errors are here including marital status and surviving spouse, mother’s name prior to first marriage, and the informant’s name and relationship to deceased.
Because I am more familiar with the situation, I can easily spot these errors, but someone else might not realize them and use this document as a basis for research causing them to miss items or waste time running down leads that simply do not exist.
- His mother’s name is not Betty Parker. It is Harper Edwards. Nowhere close.
- He was not married at the time of his death.
- The spouse listed as surviving was divorced from him nearly twelve years prior. Again, way off.
Example 2:
My second example is the 1850 United States Federal Census for Russell Gray, Joyce Ferguson, and their children.
One of the issues with this record is that it is split over two pages – father, mother, and one child are on the first page, with three children on the next page. This has caused the family to be indexed as two separate families in some databases.
I had initially come across this record when searching for the family but passed on it because I didn’t realize it continued the next page and therefore did not see the remaining children.
The youngest child of Russell and Joyce is Washington, listed as 1. Other babies in the surrounding homes have their ages listed in months if they are under 1, so this leads me to believe that Washington was born in 1849.
His death certificate, however, lists his date of birth as 1851.
Again, this is an example of primary sources being incorrect. This isn’t to discredit them, however, but to call to the forefront the importance of complete research.
These two cases are typical of the situations I've encountered most frequently in my research.
I do not think I have found one resource that has proven to be accurate 100% of the time. Everything from birth records, census, death records, marriage records, divorce, and even tombstones can be wrong. This has led me to not believe anything I see until I have other facts to further prove it.
What are some of the baffling encounters you've had with records? Have you ever had to disprove a record that others assumed was correct or disproved a record you previously assumed was correct?
- Patricia
For several years fellow blogger Amy Johnson Crow has been running a genealogy challenge that has seen increased popularity in the last couple years. Over on WikiTree, they have decided to pick up this challenge and issue a weekly open-ended prompt on the message boards. Each prompt is designed for members to discuss and respond with an ancestor or story that fits with that week’s prompt. In addition to answering over on WikiTree's G2G forum, I'll also be answering here in a more complete form.
I wanted to have a little fun with this week’s challenge topic of “Large Family” and put the spotlight on myself for this one.
I come from a blended family where both my parents had children from previous marriages before they were together. My father had four children and my mother had one, and then had four children together.
After their separation, they each married people that had children, giving me a total of seven new stepsiblings.
For those keeping track at home, that would be 16 siblings. The oldest out of the group was born in 1948 and the youngest was born in 1987. While I view this as one large family, it is incredibly segmented with many of my siblings not knowing anything about one another’s existence. It is an odd situation, but one I find quite amusing.
- Patricia
For several years fellow blogger Amy Johnson Crow has been running a genealogy challenge that has seen increased popularity in the last couple years. Over on WikiTree, they have decided to pick up this challenge and issue a weekly open-ended prompt on the message boards. Each prompt is designed for members to discuss and respond with an ancestor or story that fits with that week’s prompt. In addition to answering over on WikiTree's G2G forum, I'll also be answering here in a more complete form.
"Surprise" is the topic for the sixth week of this challenge. I was a little late for this challenge but was happy to get back into the swing of things.
One of the bigger surprises for me when I was a novice genealogist was the lack of records from the early 19th century in much of North America. I had imagined that the large religious drive that prompted much of the early settlement would translate into well-kept records.
In addition to the religious undertone of early American life, I would have assumed that time would also help establishe decent records. With the colonization of the American continent beginning in the 17th century, I would have assumed better records would be available for residents nearly two centuries later. While there are intermittent church and town records during this time, they are hardly consistent and vary widely on what and who was recorded.
I feel that I can often find better records from the same time in Europe, and better records begin appearing again around 1870 to 1880 in the United States. This has created kind of a donut hole in records where I can find information about a grandparent and grandchild, but little information on the middle generation parent. I feel like this is the culprit for many of my brick walls.
A smaller surprise that I have encountered is the amount of high inter-marrying in early American towns and villages. I’ve experienced two or three families marrying at various points in time. Most of the time I am sure they knew of the closeness of the families, but other times, I’m not so sure. While this doesn’t have a huge impact on my research, it does create some very complicated – and difficult to trace – family lines, often with naming conventions that even further confuse.
- Patricia
