{"id":7770,"date":"2014-07-24T18:13:56","date_gmt":"2014-07-24T18:13:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=7770"},"modified":"2024-07-26T11:34:10","modified_gmt":"2024-07-26T15:34:10","slug":"old-music-in-historical-newspapers-tips-for-finding-poems-songs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/old-music-in-historical-newspapers-tips-for-finding-poems-songs.html","title":{"rendered":"Old Music in Historical Newspapers: Tips for Finding Songs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction<\/em><\/strong>: Mary Harrell-Sesniak is a genealogist, author and editor with a strong technology background. In this blog post, Mary provides newspaper search tips to find articles and musical scores about the songs our ancestors enjoyed<\/em><\/p>\n

When doing your family history research, have you ever wondered about the old music your American ancestors enjoyed?<\/p>\n

What were the popular melodies and tunes of earlier days, what were their origins, and what musical discoveries can we find in historical newspapers?<\/p>\n

Yankee Doodle<\/strong><\/p>\n

A fun place to start is by researching one of the more ubiquitous tunes in American history: \u201cYankee Doodle.\u201d Just think\u2014our parents, grandparents and great grandparents knew the same lyrics to this song. What a wonderful shared experience that is.<\/p>\n

Yankee Doodle went to town
\nRiding on a pony;
\nHe stuck a feather in his hat,
\nAnd called it macaroni.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To find a wide assortment of news articles about \u201cYankee Doodle\u201d and amusing renditions of this popular American song, enter the title into GenealogyBank\u2019s search engine. This search returns over 64,000 \u201cbest matches,\u201d so you may wish to sort the results by date from the earliest to newest, or vice versa.<\/p>\n

One of the earliest newspaper articles, from 1769, reports that the British military used the song as a type of verbal bantering or taunting of the colonists.<\/p>\n

According to the article:<\/p>\n

…the Officer of the Guard, in a sneering Manner, called upon the Musicians to play up the Yankee Doodle Tune, which completed the Conquest of the Military, and afforded them a temporary Triumph.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"New-York<\/a>
New-York Journal (New York, New York), 14 September 1769, page 2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Limiting Music Searches by Categories<\/strong><\/p>\n

With so many search results, I looked for ways to narrow the focus. A promising option was the \u201cPoems & Songs\u201d category with over 1,200 historical newspaper articles to explore.<\/p>\n

\"search<\/a><\/p>\n

Adding Keywords to Your Article Search<\/strong><\/p>\n

To learn about specifics, I incorporated keywords such as \u201corigins.\u201d<\/p>\n

A newspaper article from 1861 reported that \u201cYankee Doodle\u2019s\u201d music was derived from the \u201cLucy Locket\u201d nursery rhyme. I wasn\u2019t familiar with it\u2014but if you hum \u201cLucy Locket,\u201d you\u2019ll find it has the same musical syntax, or structure, as \u201cYankee Doodle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lucy Locket lost her pocket
\nKitty Fisher found it;
\nNot a bit of money in it
\nOnly binding \u2019round it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After the 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord, the patriots came up with their own lyrics. An early version was titled \u201cThe Yankee\u2019s Return from Camp,\u201d used as a battle march.<\/p>\n