Welcome to week 29 of my Genealogy challenge, from the wonderful Amy Johnson Crow, of writing something about your Ancestors for a whole year, #52Ancestors in 52 weeks. This week’s prompt is ‘newsworthy’ and newspapers in my opinion are one of the most under utilised resources for Genealogists, you will hear me say that time and time again.
I will share with you two instances where my Chiddicks Family made the newspapers for entirely the wrong reasons, but just goes to show how such seemingly small and insignificant stories, made the newspapers ‘back in the day’.
Reported in the Chelmsford Chronicle dated 24th August 1883
“Matthew Chiddicks, South Ockendon fined 5s for neglecting to send his children to school”
Reported in The Essex Standard 12th December 1856
“James Salmon and Samuel Chiddick, boys of South Ockendon, were summoned by Charles Sturgeon, Farmer, for throwing fireworks on the public highway on 5th November and fined 1s Costs 7s, in default 7 days.”
So you just never know what you might find hidden away in the Newspapers, good or bad, it’s all part of the fabric that makes us who we are today.
The Chiddicks Family Tree 
Absolutely concur about newspapers being under-utilised! It took me far, far too long to start fully exploring these wonderful resources! Trove for Australia and the US Library of Congress’ Chronicling America have been completely invaluable to me over the years (bonus – they’re free!) and now I’m getting to grips with the British Newspaper Archive, having finally given in and purchased a subscription.
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They are such a great resource Dominic, the amount of small trivia that was reported years ago is incredible. Sometimes you need to be a bit clever with how you search on the BNA website, but apart from that, they are reall a goldmine
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Ha – oh, 100%! It doesn’t help that a lot of my family live in a county that is somewhat poorly-represented on BNA (not out of choice!) but that’s Wiltshire for you …!!
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hopefully over time, more paper from Wiltshire will appear online
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I love using newspapers, they provide the stories that flesh out our relatives, fill in the “dash” between the years they lived.
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Totally agree with you, they are packed full of so much small detail
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The things we find in newspapers.
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A real goldmine
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I love old papers.
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