{"id":3706,"date":"2013-05-29T14:19:47","date_gmt":"2013-05-29T14:19:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=3706"},"modified":"2022-12-16T13:00:43","modified_gmt":"2022-12-16T18:00:43","slug":"making-an-all-inclusive-family-tree-through-newspaper-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/making-an-all-inclusive-family-tree-through-newspaper-research.html","title":{"rendered":"Making an All-Inclusive Family Tree through Newspaper Research"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction<\/em><\/strong>: In this article, Scott\u00a0Phillips writes about expanding his family tree research to be inclusive of all family relations, and uses old newspapers to accomplish this goal. Scott is a genealogical historian and owner of Onward To Our Past\u00ae genealogy services.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

When I embarked on my initial family tree work I made an important decision: I was going to be as inclusive in my ancestry work as possible. It was an easy decision and it was actually made by my children. Quite naturally, they wanted to know both sides of their ancestry. To them it made no difference that my wife\u2019s grandparents weren\u2019t \u201cmy blood\u201d because they were \u201ctheir blood\u201d!<\/p>\n

I quickly saw that this would be true for every marriage in my tree and thanked my children profusely. In hindsight this decision to go all-inclusive with our family tree has paid huge dividends in many of my family history and genealogy efforts.\u00a0 It\u2019s led to research successes such as finding my ancestral home village in Bohemia through a clue I discovered as a result of researching my great grandfather\u2019s sister\u2019s marriage!<\/p>\n

Recently while I was researching my family tree I found myself sighing over the fact that I really knew far too little about my brother-in-law\u2019s father, Lee Tressel.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Photo: the wedding of Scott Phillips\u2019s sister and her husband, Dick Tressel. The bride\u2019s parents are on the left; Lee Tressel and his wife, Eleanor, are on the right. Credit: from the author\u2019s collection.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Unfortunately, Lee passed away at the young age of 56 in 1981, long before I was smart enough to have spent an appropriate amount of time gathering his stories and memories of his life and career to add to our family tree. While I knew Lee and had spent some time with him, I believed that there had to be more I did not know about this accomplished football player, coach, mentor, and family man. So off I went to GenealogyBank.com<\/a> to help me fill the void in our family tree\u2014and it did a superb job!<\/p>\n

One of my earliest discoveries in this family research project was a 1996 newspaper article that recapped Lee\u2019s induction, as a member of the inaugural class, into the College Football Hall of Fame. It was inspiring to see his name alongside such football luminaries as Terry Bradshaw and Walter Payton.<\/p>\n

\"Payton,<\/a>
Marietta Journal (Marietta, Georgia), 18 May 1996, page 22<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As I continued my genealogy search, I was treated to a 1969 newspaper article that included a wonderful photo. This was a truly smile-inducing old news article since it not only talked about Lee, but also about his son, Dick, my now brother-in-law, playing for him at Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio.<\/p>\n

\"Father-Son<\/a>
Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio), 21 November 1969, page 54<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Soon my searching brought me to another historical newspaper article from Cleveland, Ohio. While it was bittersweet to be reading Lee\u2019s obituary, there were genealogy and family history treasures to be found throughout this article.<\/p>\n

\"Friends,<\/a>
Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio), 17 April 1981, page 61<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Not only was there a very nice review of Lee\u2019s sports coaching career, there was also a quote from our old family friend and my first childhood hero, Cleveland Browns\u2019 Pro Football Hall of Fame member Lou \u201cThe Toe\u201d Groza. I was even more thrilled when I saw that this news article included a photograph of Lee from his playing days. Now, I am not saying Lee played the game in the olden days, but I will say you can see him wearing a leather helmet. No wonder he knew the game so well! It was also heartwarming to read a quote by the Browns\u2019 coach, Sam Rutigliano, who said \u201cLee represented all the things I believe in\u2014in coaching, as a father, a friend and a husband. He was all the things I\u2019d like to be.\u201d Quite an accolade I\u2019d say.<\/p>\n

I came across several more articles talking about how Lee thought it was a real thrill to be able to coach two of his sons on the gridiron, both my brother-in-law, Dick, and Dick\u2019s youngest brother and my schoolmate, Jim. I kept on searching and was taken aback by my next genealogy find.<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t quite figure out why GenealogyBank.com<\/a> was directing me to an article published on 20 November 1933 in the Repository<\/em> of Canton, Ohio, but as always I took a quick look. I found myself reading an article about Lee\u2019s father (who was also named Lee) and the tragic loss of his brother, Charles Gene Tressel, at the age of 11. He died of \u201clockjaw\u201d from stepping on a chicken bone. This one took me right back to my summer visits to the old Tressel family farm in rural Ohio.<\/p>\n

\"Tetanus<\/a>
Repository (Canton, Ohio), 20 November 1933, page 10<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In just about an hour I had taken a lovely trip back in time, gained valuable information on this family member, and even discovered tidbits of family information I had never expected. That is one of the things I like best about using newspapers in my genealogy research: finding the unexpected!
\nWhat kind of interesting family information have you<\/em><\/strong> found unexpectedly in old newspapers?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this article, Scott Phillips writes about expanding his family tree research to be inclusive of all family relations, by using old newspaper articles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":28419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12713],"tags":[2084,12,2719,2020],"class_list":["post-3706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-genealogy-research-tips","tag-family-trees","tag-genealogy","tag-genealogy-search-tips","tag-newspaper-archives"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/montage-0202-2016-featured-graphic-newspapers.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3706"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88399,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3706\/revisions\/88399"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}