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<\/a>I wanted to see if I could find any new ancestors who might have belonged to this branch of my family, so, I decided to do a search in GenealogyBank\u2019s Historical Newspaper Archives<\/a> to look for clues.<\/p>\n I began by searching the New York Newspaper Archives<\/a> for the last name \u201cSniffen\u201d with the keyword \u201cWestchester,\u201d one of the counties where they lived.<\/p>\n Out of 184 results, the sixth was a notice from the Westchester Herald<\/em>, which was published in Ossining, about a man named Thomas Sniffen, Jr. whose property was being sold at a sheriff\u2019s auction on 27 January 1824.<\/p>\n According to the article, Thomas Sniffen, Jr. owned \u201ctwo certain farms, pieces or parcels of land, situate, lying and being in the town of Rye.\u201d This is a good sign \u2013 it means this Thomas Sniffen, Jr. not only has the right last name, but he was from the right area, too.<\/p>\n Next, I searched for Thomas Sniffen in my family tree \u2013 but I couldn\u2019t find him. That\u2019s okay; since Thomas lived in Westchester County and was part of the Sniffen family, I can assume that he is part of the extended Sniffen family that I am related to. Now, I just need to do the additional research to see exactly how he fits in.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>