{"id":9625,"date":"2015-02-11T16:56:37","date_gmt":"2015-02-11T16:56:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=9625"},"modified":"2019-10-24T12:31:16","modified_gmt":"2019-10-24T16:31:16","slug":"newspapers-can-find-relatives-you-didnt-know-you-had","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/newspapers-can-find-relatives-you-didnt-know-you-had.html","title":{"rendered":"Newspapers Can Find Relatives You Didn\u2019t Know You Had"},"content":{"rendered":"

I think I\u2019ve discovered two relatives I never knew existed \u2013 in the city where I grew up!<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been doing Genealogy for a long time and thought I had \u201cmet\u201d them all at one point or another, and then I came across this old newspaper article.<\/p>\n

\"Yale<\/a>
Stamford Advocate (Stamford, Connecticut), 1 May 1929, page 15<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In May of 1929, employees from the Yale & Towne Manufacturing company came together to put on a production of the play \u201cArnold Goes into Business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Look closer at this enlargement of the main cast.<\/p>\n

\"Yale<\/a>
Stamford Advocate (Stamford, Connecticut), 1 May 1929, page 15<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Who are these guys: John and Mrs. Marie Anna Kemp?
\nMrs. Marie Anna Kemp plays the part of Irma\u2019s mother, Catherine Gleason,
\nand
\nJohn Kemp plays the part of Irma\u2019s father H. A. Cooper.<\/p>\n

Now if this\u00a0surname was Smith or Brown, I wouldn\u2019t have noticed it \u2013 but Kemp is a fairly unusual name. I like to research all Kemp\u00a0ancestral lines to run them back a few generations to see if we are related or not.<\/p>\n

[search_box]<\/p>\n

If these are my relatives, I have never heard of them. I asked my 91-year-old father if he had any idea who they were, and he had never heard of them either.<\/p>\n

According to the\u00a0old news article: \u201cEvery member of the cast…is a Yale & Towne employee.\u201d That tells me they must live in or near Stamford.<\/p>\n

My grandfather, Willard H. Kemp, did work for Y&T and his father was John Henry Kemp \u2013 but in 1929 he was 63 years old and was employed full-time in the Post Office. He didn\u2019t retire until 1931 when he was 65 years old, and he never worked for Y&T. So this John Kemp could be him \u2013 but he doesn\u2019t match the other clues given in the article or the other facts in his personal history.<\/p>\n

So \u2013 who were John Kemp and \u201cMrs. Marie Anna Kemp\u201d?<\/p>\n

I looked in the 1920 and the 1930 census<\/a> \u2013 no mention of any other John or Marie Anna Kemp living anywhere in the state of Connecticut.<\/p>\n

So \u2013 just when I thought I\u2019d tracked them all down, here is a newspaper article alerting me to two more possible relatives in our Kemp family tree.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll have to dig deeper into GenealogyBank\u2019s archive of 1.7 billion records to find out more about them. And it\u2019s the same for you: you have ancestors that are waiting to be discovered. Sign up today<\/a> and begin your search!<\/p>\n

Related Articles:<\/strong><\/p>\n