The Jersey Journal

Funny thing happened after I wrote my post about newspapers from Scranton last night. I went back to genealogybank.com and I looked at the Jersey Journal. It seems that genealogybank.com has added more content, specifically to the Jersey Journal.  They now have the Jersey Journal from 1867 through June of 1977.  My wife and kids won't be seeing much of me for awhile.

I have been searching through the Jersey Journal looking for tidbits about my family, who have been in Jersey City since the early 1900s.  My dad's family, particularly his mom's side (O'Dea and Sterling) have been in Jersey City since about 1890 or so, and his father (Brady) came to Jersey City from Scranton shortly after 1910.  On my mom's side, both parent's families (Bergen and McConville) have been in Jersey City since the late 1800s.  So there is lots of blog fodder in the Jersey Journal

I found your standard obits and marriages, which will always give you information, but I found some things that I wasn't even looking for.  Like this:

I know that you can barely read this, but it is my mom's engagement announcement (to my dad, obviously).  Even though it is very poor quality, I had to add it.  It was published 6 Mar 1948, five days before mom's birthday, and exactly one year before the birth of my sister  Phew! That was close.

Then I found more articles about my dad and his brothers, Jim and Frank, returning home from WWII.  Jim and Frank were both in the Army Air Corps and were both shot down and taken prisoner, months apart.  They wound up in the same POW camp and escaped / were liberated together.  They spent time in a hospital in England before being shipped home.  Dad was in an anti aircraft battalion in Italy when my grandmother was notified that they were safe, dad was also a veteran of the North African invasion.  Can you imagine being my grandmother and sending three of your four sons to war in Europe.  They were overseas for years before coming home.  Six years later she would send her fourth son to fight in Korea, and there is an article about my Uncle Paul coming home that I found in the Jersey Journal.  So all four of her sons went off to war and made it home to live their lives.

That's enough for tonight, and I am sure I will find more interesting items as I keep searching.

Newspapers in Scranton

It has been a while since my last post - like about four months - but I have been busy with living relatives lately.  But enough excuses, lets get down to business.

I have had a subscription to genealogybank.com for a while now, and I liked it because it had the Jersey Journal from Jersey City, but only until about 1922. I found a few articles on this site, including marriages and obits, which have been very helpful.

I recently got a subscription to Newspapers.com, mainly because it had the Scranton Republican 1889 - 1936.   I found lots of great articles about my Scranton Bradys, including weddings, deaths, and just everyday life.  It is really quite fascinating to find articles about your family - especially since I never knew any of them.  Even the most mundane happenings appeared in the newspaper back in the day, not like today when everything is sensationalized.

I found articles connecting my Brady ancestors to my Conveys and Davis's.  It has really helped me make connections between families that help everything to make sense.

Some of the articles are odd, like those of John Brady's house collapsing into coal mines that run beneath the property.  This apparently happened several times to John, as well as to his neighbors. The people in the neighborhood had to fight the coal companies for compensation.  They got together and formed the Surface Protection Association.  The association got the mine owners to agree to move families to a safe place when their homes were on the verge of collapsing into mine tunnels.  The families were returned to their homes when the area was safe and repairs had been made - all at the expense of the mining companies.

Or articles about chicken thieves in the area getting into the henneries of John and his neighbors.  I never would have guessed the John Brady and his family raised chickens, but now I know.  It just gives you a little insight into their daily lives.

Then there are articles that are absolutely heartbreaking, for example:  The death of Joseph Convey age 19, of typhoid fever.  Joseph is the son of John Convey and Bridget Brown,  John Convey (I am pretty sure) is the brother of my great great grandmother Bridget Convey Brady.  The original article says that he died of typhoid fever, but the next day it turns out even more tragic.  He was making a recovery, when his mother mistakenly gave him a dose of carbolic acid, thinking it was citrate of magnesia ( both bottles were similar in appearance).

I have found deaths and marriages that have connected families that I always suspected were related, and then were were articles such as this one:

This is from the Scranton Republican in February 1904.  You may remember the Davis family of Gordon, Pa from when the Bradys lived in Gordon.  I have mentioned that there was probably a family connection between them.  Well here they are again, only now I already know that they are related, and how.  Mrs Patrick Davis and Mrs Thomas Brady are sisters: Catherine and Bridget Convey.

As you can see, newspapers can be a very big part of genealogy research.  Some of the things that you can learn really give you an idea of what life may have been like for your family.  Life was alot different back in the early 1900s.  Some things may have been better and some worse, but thanks to their perseverance, we are here today.