Family History
Family History Series Part 8:
Using Local Newspapers to
Trace your Ancestors
By Sophie Jackson
Important individuals often had lengthy obituaries printed
about them, which can reveal much about an ancestor’s life
and personality. Copyright: N/A.
Newspaper archives can hold a wealth of hidden information. Copyright: Stock Xchng (Yurdacan)
Caption: Since newspapers began they have published
stories about the significant events in peoples’ lives.
Copyright: N/A.
ANTIQUES INFO - May/June 14
Local newspaper and magazine archives are often an undervalued resource.
For the genealogist they can be a potential treasure trove, but because they are
such a vast store of information they can be very daunting to trawl through.
However, most record offices now have their newspaper collections, if not their
magazine collections, placed onto microfilm. Some have even been digitally
archived, making them available online and accessible by search engines. They
are a goldmine of information that should not be ignored.
Lifetime Events
Almost since newspapers came into circulation people have chosen to
announce significant events within their pages. Births, marriages and deaths
have all been announced each week, or even daily, for nearly two centuries.
Tracing a life event through a paper will depend on a number of considerations.
In the first place, of course, you will have to consider whether your ancestor
was the type of person who might place an announcement in a newspaper.
Secondly you will have to consider if they could afford to do so, for many
poorer souls would simply not have the funds for such a luxury. Once the
answer to those questions is decided, it is a case of examining the papers at the
relevant time for possible announcements. Most papers had a formula for how
they laid out their news items, so it may not be necessary to read the whole
newspaper. Remember that announcements could come a few weeks after the
event. In the cases of more important individuals, they may even have
warranted a mention in The Times. It is a fact of history that at the individual
level history is usually related to only the upper classes or the well off.
News Items
Ancestors that were involved in important events or societies are also liable to
feature in the newspaper. If you know something significant happened in your
ancestor’s life, perhaps a daring rescue, or a political protest, even a big charity
event, then it will be worth checking the newspapers around that time to see if
they reported it. Earlier newspapers do not always give names, so it can take a
little detective work to determine if a story is truly about a deceased relative.
The other main reason an ancestor would make the news was if they were
involved in a crime, either as victim or culprit. This in itself can be enlightening
as it reveals the personality of an ancestor and their social situation. They may
also feature in the paper because they were important local businessmen, or
held a high office, such as mayor. Perhaps they became an MP, or were
involved in the local church. In fact, almost anyone could have the potential for
being part of a news story, even if it was just because they managed to live to
100.
War Woes
With the steady approach of the anniversary of the First World War, it is
important to remember that ancestors could feature in the paper because of
heroism in action or because they had been killed. Throughout 1914-1915,
relatives of the fallen had commemorative pieces placed in the paper.
Sometimes the death of a man was also reported independently by the
newspaper, especially if he had been awarded an honour for his actions. Such
features sometimes include photographs, often the only ones remaining of that
ancestor. As tragic as these items are, they can be insightful to the genealogist.
Newspapers bring alive our ancestors, they tell us about them in ways we
could never know. They might record their speech, or their character, things
ordinary records cannot tell us. The hard work of going through newspaper
archives is often rewarded with little gems of historical data that complete the
picture of our family tree. It is perhaps the closest we can come to actually
meeting our ancestors, and certainly it is a resource that deserves to be better
prized.
Centenary
Centenary:
Was the Death of Rudolf of
Austria the Key to the First
By Sophie Jackson
World War?
As the anniversary of the start of the Great War approaches everyone is
highly aware that it was the death of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, 100 years ago
on 28th June 1914, that was the catalyst for the War. But, was there an earlier
event that was the real trigger for this descent into global madness?
The Forgotten Prince
There is another anniversary concerning an Austrian prince that will be
largely forgotten in 2014. 125 years ago Rudolf von Habsburg-Lorraine, the
Crown Prince of Austria, shot himself in a tragic suicide pact with his
mistress. The young prince, aged only 30, had been the source of much hope
within Austria. Rudolf was a scholar, particularly interested in the natural
sciences, and in contrast to his father Emperor Franz Joseph I, strongly liberalminded. But his personal life was both complicated and a source of much
misery.
Forced to marry Princess Stephanie of Belgium in 1881, he was made
deeply miserable by the union and the pressures placed on him by his
controlling father. By the time his first daughter was born in 1883 he was
pursuing a string of affairs and drank heavily. Desperately he hoped for an
annulment from his wife, but yet again his father stepped in and forbade it.
Rudolf was rapidly falling into a state of self-destructive depression.
Dear Mary
In late 1888, when things seemed at their worst for Rudolf, he met the
charming 17 year old Baroness Marie Vetsera. Marie was fashionably
anglophile in her views and had even anglicised her name to Mary. She was
soon Rudolf’s mistress and he was deeply in love. When the news reached the
Emperor he was furious, his son’s various scandals having pushed him to the
limit of his patience. He told Rudolf bluntly the affair must end at once.
Rudolf was in love with Mary and couldn’t face being without her. The
depression that had haunted him for so long, now finally turned into despair.
On 30 January 1889 he took Mary out to his hunting lodge. There they made a
suicide pact. Rudolf first shot Mary in the head and then turned the gun on
himself.
When the disaster was discovered there was no easy way to cover the
scandal. Mary’s body was smuggled out of the hunting lodge and buried in a
nearby village and Rudolf was officially declared mentally unbalanced at the
time of his death, so he could receive a Christian burial in the Imperial Crypt.
The news was difficult to keep quiet. In Britain the papers speculated about
everything, from royal madness to the possibility the prince was murdered.
The Aftermath
Not even the rumour-mongers could foresee the real impact of Rudolf’s
death. Not only had the legitimate prince been swept away, along with his
liberal views, but now the succession was in danger. Next in line was
Archduke Karl Ludwig, Emperor Franz Joseph’s younger brother, but within
days he had renounced his succession rights in favour of his eldest son:
Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
Franz Ferdinand was not an ideal leader, he fought with his uncle the
Emperor and his dogmatic attitude at least in part led to his assassination. Had
the more sensitive Rudolf lived perhaps certain political tensions would have
been eased. Was the suicide of a prince 125 years ago the real trigger for the
First World War? As the Great War demands our attention this year, the death
of a forgotten prince will go unmarked, but Rudolf may be the lost piece of the
jigsaw puzzle, the piece that completes the picture. Rudolf’s death was more
than just an Austrian tragedy, it was the beginning of a worldwide calamity.
Was the death of the young and liberal-minded Archduke
Rudolf the real trigger for WWI? Copyright: N/A.
The Austrian authorities did what they could to cover-up the
circumstances of Rudolf’s death, but this failed to prevent a
scandal. Copyright: N/A.
This postcard shows the hunting lodge where Rudolf and his
mistress committed suicide. Copyright: N/A.
ANTIQUES INFO - May/June 14