I noticed today that Ancestry.com is adding newspaper archives to their site. I am an avid family researcher and thee is only so much you can do with dates and names- finding little newspaper notes really makes people seem more real.

Take the story in The Saratogian dated 1915, which told about my great-grandfather driving his horse and cart to market. The road was in disrepair, and his cartwheel got caught in some cobblestones. He wasn’t hurt, but the wheel unraveled, and the reporter went on at great length about how the road should have been fixed during the previous year, as an estimate had been made and funds allotted. I am struck how things are more the same nearly a hundred years later as my husband and I were driving down the road on our motorcycle and hit a mega pot-hole yesterday!

Today’s news story, from the Troy Times Record, dated Jan. 5, 1943, and tells of my friend Nancy’s aunt Mary J. Rich, daughter of Georgia Rich of Whitehall, N.Y. Mary was on her way to her station as a Major with the US Nursing Corps, in Australia. I grew up knowing Nancy’s family well, as I lived next door, and was a frequent hanger-on. Her mother came from a family of 10 children aad I had trouble keeping them straight. I vaguely remember knowing that her Aunt was in the service, but I never knew that she had gone overseas. Wow!

At a funeral recently, Nancy and her dad remarked on my great-grandmother’s name, which was the same surname as theirs, and we began wondering if there was a family connection, so, having recently joined Ancestry.com, I started researching their line. I am planning to get a little book together in time for her daughter’s wedding, which is almost here. So far it looks like we had relatives with the same surname in next-door towns, all Irish immigrants, but so far there is not a connection.