Our week 41 topic is “Travel”. I love to travel – I have one coming up to Australia and New Zealand. I am looking forward to it. It was supposed to happen in 2020, but well, we know how that year rolled out.

I love to look through old newspapers. They are a treasure trove of social news and other genealogical items that help to paint a complete picture of our ancestors’ lives.

I have been doing some client research. I was able to locate multiple clippings that detailed the travels of the research subject. It helped me to create a timeline of her life in the community, as well as the family and friends she interacted with.

It was fun to read these short blurbs about travel. I feel I take travel for granted traveling around my own state. The community where she lived is about an hour from where I live in Rochester. It’s near where one of my college friend’s lives, and I’m used to driving there and going home the same day!

These clippings spoke of the days when family and friends would travel 50 miles away and stay for a couple of weeks. Maybe they were spending the holidays or participating in a special occasion. I mentioned how I created a timeline. This is helping me to figure out exactly when they lived in the community, and when they left.

Timelines created with this information also help us as genealogical researchers to find records. It’s great being able to narrow down what we should be looking at. For example, if my ancestor is known to be living in a specific community, I would want to look at census, land, and other records in that area.

It is also beneficial knowing the year(s) from these records. As an example, vital records in New York State were not required on a statewide level until 1880. It means before that date, I have to look for other means to validate this information for my research, such as baptismal records.

I recommend sites with old newspapers, such as Newspapers.com, the Library of Congress site, and the Old Fulton NY Postcards site (https://fultonhistory.com/). Select option 2, Go and browse my Archives. Enter the name of the person you are researching in quotation marks, or just enter a search work and see what records come up.

Good luck with your searches! Let me know what you find out. It could be about your ancestor’s travels. It could be anything at all. You can reach me by using the “contact me” section of my website, or Facebook page, Postmodern Genealogy. If you have specific genealogy questions, please remember, consultations are always free.

Until next time, when the topic is “Friends”.