{"id":48077,"date":"2019-02-15T11:52:28","date_gmt":"2019-02-15T16:52:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=48077"},"modified":"2019-02-15T11:52:48","modified_gmt":"2019-02-15T16:52:48","slug":"i-cant-find-his-obituary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/i-cant-find-his-obituary.html","title":{"rendered":"I Can\u2019t Find His Obituary"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was looking for the obituary of Garcelon Chandler Wright (1826-1900)<\/a> \u2013 and did not find him under the name Garcelon Wright.<\/p>\n

I knew he was born in Maine and died in Greeley, Nebraska \u2013 so I searched again using only his surname, the year of death and narrowed the search to only Nebraska newspapers.<\/p>\n

There \u2013 that did it. I found his obituary, listed under \u201cG. C. Wright.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Source: GenealogyBank, Omaha World Herald (Omaha, Nebraska), 2 April 1900, page 4<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I learned a lot from his obituary.<\/p>\n

He was the editor of the Greeley Citizen<\/em> newspaper, an attorney and a Democrat. Here\u2019s something interesting:<\/p>\n

\u201cHis law partner\u2026 was his daughter, Miss E. E. Wright, the only member of the family surviving him.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I didn\u2019t know that Elfleda Estella (Wright) Compton (1864-1924)<\/a> was also a lawyer.<\/p>\n

Notice that editors often used initials instead of first names in obituaries. Searches for either the father or the daughter using their first names would not have found this obituary.<\/p>\n

It is important to be flexible in searching old newspapers, such as GenealogyBank\u2019s Historical Newspaper Archives<\/a>.
\nIn this example, their surname was Wright \u2013 a common surname.<\/p>\n

So, I narrowed the search from March 1900 to April 1900 and limited it to only Nebraska newspapers so that I would not get back too many search results.<\/p>\n

By narrowing my search, I received only four hits \u2013 including his informative obituary.<\/p>\n

Notice also that the Nebraska editor said that Garcelon was born in Maryland.
\nHe was actually born in Maine.<\/p>\n

The 1860 census clearly shows that he was born in Maine, and his wife, Sophia (Hyrons) Wright<\/a>, was born in Maryland.<\/p>\n

\"1860<\/a>
Source: GenealogyBank, \u201cUnited States Census, 1860,\u201d database with images, GenealogyBank (https:\/\/genealogybank.com\/#), G C Wright, Washington Township, Bremer, Iowa, United States. (Original index: United States Census, 1860, FamilySearch, 2014)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The 1870 and 1880 census records also show that he was born in Maine.<\/p>\n

Not all sources will agree or give a person\u2019s full name.
\nBe sure to be flexible in searching for the records of your relatives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An article by Thomas Jay Kemp about adjusting his search in order to find the obituary of Garcelon Chandler Wright.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12713],"tags":[6215,6976,12,2719,2020,1084],"class_list":["post-48077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-genealogy-research-tips","tag-ancestor-name-research","tag-census-records","tag-genealogy","tag-genealogy-search-tips","tag-newspaper-archives","tag-obituaries"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/photo-0810-2016-cemetery.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48077","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}