Week 6: Social Media #52Ancestorsin52weeks

In the future, our descendants will have access to a wealth of information about us and the sort of life we led from the internet and from our use of social media. But how can we find out information about our ancestors, the type of information not recorded on official records or censuses?

Very simply, by researching and viewing the ‘social media’ of our ancestors’ day - newspapers. From big events to local gossip, that’s where everything was chronicled.

The British Newspaper Archives have newspapers from the 1700s-2000s online. That’s where I found and read a murder trial report from the High Court in Edinburgh in the Scottish Chronicle dated June 1811. The murder victim was my 3 x great grandfather, Alexander McAra. The defendant was his brother, James, my 3 x great uncle.

The report goes into great detail. The circumstances leading up to the offence, graphic detail of the ‘attack’, the witnesses’ statements, the judge’s summation and verdict. Much more detail than we would get for the report of a trial in today’s newspapers.

(Source: The British Newspaper Archives)

A really interesting, but quite horrific, read – when you realise this actually happened to your ancestors. These brothers were real people and the account given makes them so much more than just names on a family tree. It puts skin on their bones.

More recently, newspapers.com. which gives similar access to USA newspapers, was really helpful in research I was doing for a friend. An obituary notice from 1978 in the Minneapolis Star, gave names and locations of family members attending a funeral. Other articles showed that the family was very active in the community, attending many local events.

Our ancestors might not have recorded their lives on Facebook and Instagram, but aspects of their lives may be waiting for you to find in their local newspapers.

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