Leaves & Branches

Over the past couple of days I have been doing a lot of newspaper research.  I love reading old newspaper articles.  The minute detail of every aspect of small town life can be entertaining.  Can you imagine supper at your parents’ house making the local news?   How would you like the neighbors talking about the reason for your recent hospitalization over a game of cards?  Few details of small town life were off limits in the local newspapers. I will focus this post on the tidbits I found on my maternal grandmother Mary Jane Dudley Donaldson’s family.  Her uncle L.J. Dudley was an attorney and his travels throughout Highland and Clinton Counties were well documented in the local papers.  The News Herald of Hillsboro had a tantalizing tidbit about one of L.J.’s trips in its May 6, 1897 edition:  “There must be something attractive in Wilmington for L.J. Dudley, as he has been there twice in one week.” I’m intrigued, as I am sure were ...

Well, I still haven't found that spark that will again make my family history research an obsession again.  I keep trying to find that one record that will open the door to new avenues of research.  It will come - it always does - but right now I'm still in a rut. This morning I was searching for some good cooking blogs to follow.  In the process, I came across a couple of blogs about "orphan photos" - old pictures the bloggers have found or purchased and for which they have no information.  This inspired me to post some of my orphan photographs. I found these photos in a chest containing photos and documents that belonged to my maternal grandmother, Mary Jane Dudley Donaldson (1898 - 1976).  I believe that many of the items in the chest were passed down to her from her mother, Mary Elizabeth Shaper Dudley (1861 - 1947).  I believe that most, if not all, of the photos are family and friends of the Dudley and Shaper families of Clinton and Highland Cou...