Small Items in Newspapers – Hazelton 1949

Do not overlook small items in newspapers. They may be small but they can lead to a wealth of information.

I was looking for an obituary in the 1949 “Roundup Record-Tribune & Winnett Times” a Montana newspaper when this small item caught my eye.

(See below for information on newspaper and link to item)

I almost overlooked it but some force; maybe the genealogy Gods made me stop and read the whole thing.

The item is not highlighted so it will not get picked up by a search, so instead I went searching for a family tree owner who might like this information.

Doing a search for Lindon Thomas Hazelton on Ancestry.com, I was able to find one private tree. Since it is “Private” I was not able to see if they had the death information but I went ahead and sent them the link to the newspaper and instructions on how to get to the small item.

I then created a family tree to hold the screen print of the newspaper item. I created the Lindon tree on Ancestry.com using the information contained in the news item and picked up hints along the way. I was able to find other “Public” family trees once I put his father’s name on the tree and still more family trees once I started picking up hints. (See list of twelve (12) family trees at bottom)

I was also able to find a WWI record which listed the sister of Thomas Hayman; father of Gladys. Gladys as you will recall is Lindon’s mother mentioned in the newspaper item. This bit of information (married sister of Thomas) did not appear on any of the trees, yet could be a big clue for some other family tree owner because it has her married name “Mrs. Elizabeth Arther” and next to that “sister”. With that piece of information I was able to find her marriage record which had the parent’s names on it. I was able to confirm other records because of the parent’s names on this and on another person’s marriage records. Below is a screen print of the final result.

I stopped working on the tree although there are still other records that could be put on the tree.

From the small item in the newspaper which contained four names and a date I was able to create a tree that now has 27 people and 41 records. More can still be done as is shown in the Hints section on Stats of the tree.

Tree Name: Lindon Thomas Hazelton 21 May 1948