Old Newspapers

Old newspaper articles are a great source of information on your family - if you can find them.  I have a subscription to Genealogybank.com, which has really helped me find some old articles.  I subscribed because one of the Newspapers that they have digitized is the Jersey Journal in Jersey City.  After searching through it for my father and his brothers, as well as, my mother's brothers all coming home after WWII.  I could not find anything.  Then I read the part where they tell you what newspapers are there and the dates that they cover.  It was then that I realized that they have only digitized up until 1922.  OOOPS, I should have read that before subscribing.  But as it turns out, that is where I found the small articles about George P Valleau in Omaha, NE.  There was one listing when he applied for a marriage license, and a second one about him leaving home and not returning.  I have located some recent obits also, one was for George's son:
Arthur Valleau.

But, I think I hit the mother lode with the Valleau-Metzger branch of the tree.  I recently found this article:

It was in the Trenton Sunday Times Advertiser, Sunday June 16, 1957 on the first page of section 2.  This is the son of Charles Metzger and Gertrude Valleau-Metzger, earning his degree from Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania.  It tells you his address (which I knew) and that his degree was in psychology, and that he was a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon social Fraternity - Party!, the government club, the Young Democrat Club, the Eta Sigma Phi honorary society, and the basketball team.  I never knew anything about him, but now I know a little more.

The best was the pictures I found:

Here is Charles E Metzger getting name President of the Alumni Association for the State Model School and Teacher's College (Trenton State College - now the College of New Jersey)

How about this one?

This is the wedding of Susan Valleau Metzger - Baldwin to Joseph R Baldwin.  Pretty picture of her don't you think?  These pictures were in the Trenton Times also.

Now here's an oldie but a goodie:

This is from the Jersey Journal and it is short but contains a lot of info - obviously no pictures.  This is the marriage of Mary Marguerite O'Dea (Susan's maternal grandmother) and Charles Arthur Valleau.  It tells her sister's name - Gertrude (which will also be the name of her daughter), as a bridesmaid  and the groom's brother, Percy, is the best man.  It goes on to say that only a few people knew of the marriage, and they will live in Bayonne.  The wedding took place on 16 Feb 1904 in St Paul's Church in Jersey City.  It doesn't say that in the article, but I just thought I'd throw that in to impress you with my knowledge of the family.

Last, but certainly not least, I can't write a post about newspaper articles without an obit:

He died suddenly in Philadelphia, he was struck by a train at the Belmont station while working on the railroad.  But this gives names of his mother, father, and brother and where his brother Leo lives, and the church that they attend.  Now all I have to do is find an article in a Philadelphia newspaper about the train accident - but I have to go to Philly for that.