{"id":52897,"date":"2019-09-25T11:30:09","date_gmt":"2019-09-25T15:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=52897"},"modified":"2019-09-25T11:30:41","modified_gmt":"2019-09-25T15:30:41","slug":"genealogy-tip-what-does-relict-mean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/genealogy-tip-what-does-relict-mean.html","title":{"rendered":"Genealogy Tip: What Does \u2018Relict\u2019 Mean?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Genealogists routinely see the word \u201crelict\u201d in old obituaries. It is not a word that we use in obituaries today.<\/p>\n<p>It simply means \u201cwidow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Notice how commonly it is used in these brief obituaries published in the <em>Irish American<\/em> in 1851.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_52901\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-52901\" style=\"width: 714px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/doc\/newspapers\/image\/v2%3A13696D2BA51E4E7A%40GB3NEWS-1369C9D29CD03C68%402397218-136975095F5773E8%401-137DFA49C31A46D0\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-52901\" src=\"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/irish-american-newspaper-0405-1851-obituaries.png\" alt=\"Obituaries, Irish American newspaper article 5 April 1851\" width=\"714\" height=\"539\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/irish-american-newspaper-0405-1851-obituaries.png 714w, https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/irish-american-newspaper-0405-1851-obituaries-300x226.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 714px) 100vw, 714px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-52901\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Irish American (New York, New York), 5 April 1851, page 2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Wait. These people all died in Ireland!<\/p>\n<p>Yes, it was routine for newspaper editors to publish news that informed and captured the attention of their readers. Give them what they want and they will steadily buy the newspaper.<\/p>\n<p>The New York City newspaper, the <em>Irish American<\/em>, appealed to Irish immigrants and they were interested in the news about their neighbors living here and back in Ireland.<\/p>\n<p>Whether it was the news of the death of little 8-month-old Geraldine O\u2019Moore Williams, who died of whooping cough on 27 February 1851, or Sarah Caffrey, the 73-year-old \u201crelict\u201d \u2013 widow \u2013 of John Caffrey who lived on Summer Street in South Dublin and died on 12 March 1851, this newspaper reported it.<\/p>\n<p>For a brief moment this newspaper\u2019s readers were caught up on the happenings back home. Likely they knew these people or had friends who did. Ireland was not such a distant place. I am always amazed at the diverse information that can be found in GenealogyBank\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/explore\/newspapers\/all?utm_source=social&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=SM_Blog_txtlnk_2014_00&s_referrer=social&s_siteloc=blog&s_trackval=SM_Blog_txtlnk_2014_00&kbid=69919&pq=1&prebuy=no&intver=&CCPRODCODE=\">Historical Newspaper Archives<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Comprehensive Irish civil registration did not begin until 1884, so finding death records before that can be difficult. Having them reported and published in American newspapers is a big help to Irish American family history researchers.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Genealogy Tip:<\/em><\/strong> Irish deaths were routinely published in American newspapers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An article by Thomas Jay Kemp explaining a word that genealogists often find in old obituaries: \u201crelict.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52911,"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":[12,2719,46739],"class_list":["post-52897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-genealogy-research-tips","tag-genealogy","tag-genealogy-search-tips","tag-genealogy-terms-and-abbreviations"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/photo-0810-2016-cemetery-2.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52897","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=52897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}