Newspapers are an excellent source for historical and genealogical information. They may contain notices about birth, marriage, death, delinquent taxes, runaway slaves, manumissions, and lists of free people of color. Here are examples of emancipations as they appeared in a St. Louis newspaper. What types of information have you found in newspapers?
Census enumerators sometimes made “errors” that actually were beneficial to researchers. For instance, they entered more information than they were instructed to write down. One such example shows that an enumerator in St. Louis apparently recorded the names of slaves in the slave schedule (as well as some data on the slave owners)! For similar cases, see Alycon Trubey Pierce, "In Praise of Errors Made by Census Enumerators," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 81 (March 1993): 51-55. Have you found “errors” in your census research?
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AuthorI am a professional genealogist specializing in St. Louis area genealogical and historical research and tracing the lives of African Americans. I earned my Ph.D. in history from the University of Alabama. Please see my other website Finding African American Ancestors http://findingafricanamericanancestors.weebly.com/. Archives
June 2015
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