52 Ancestors Week38 – Unusual Source

[fauxklore]

The theme for week 38 (September 17-23) is Unusual Source. Newspapers aren’t unusual per se, but one normally looks for newspaper stories about people in the locations where they lived. I’ve got two examples where I’ve found newspaper stories about relatives in unexpected places.

My third cousin once removed, Abraham Krengel, came to the U.S. in 1947 at the age of 8. HIAS (the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) settled the family in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. I know that at least some of them (including him) were later in New York. But I found a newspaper article, showing a picture of him lighting Chanukah candles a year or two later – in a newspaper from Hillsborough, Ohio.

Somewhat less surprising was that the best source I found for the list of people killed in the crash of the Congressional Limited in 1943, which included my great-aunt, Mary Lehrman (originally Mariasha Chlebatzka), was a Chicago newspaper, even though the crash was in Pennsylvania. It’s not surprising because it was a huge story, with 79 people killed, and there were stories in a lot of major newspapers. What is, perhaps, surprising, however, is that the Washington and New York papers didn’t have as complete a list.

Comments

[luscious_purple]

Interesting. My mother was born and raised in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. She lived in the completely French Canadian Catholic neighborhood of Cleghorn. However, after eighth grade she took herself out of the parochial school system and enrolled herself in Fitchburg High School (class of 1937). She insisted that I would get a public school education.