Don’t forget to include all your relatives on your tree, even the unmarried ones.
I saw an obituary for a Miss Romelia Beebe, age 93 in a 1963 Google News Archive newspaper collection. Upon closer inspection I noticed that they had the date wrong on their collection title. The actual date of the newspaper is 1983. (Remember my previous posts where I’ve talked about watching out for errors in the Google News Archive newspaper collection. This is a perfect example of that kind of error.)
I picked up the obit for Miss Romelia Beebe and created a screen print of it, with notes showing the error on date. I also picked up the link to the item.
I then made a text file, transcribing the information off of the obit.
When I work on a newspaper obituary I don’t like to just type up what they had on their piece because many times the writer scatters the information all over the obituary and it is hard to follow. I like to transcribe the information into a useable format where the person’s data is on top; name age, date birth, date death followed by relative’s etc. like so:
Romelia Beebe
age 93
born: 15 Nov 1890 – in Chicago
died: 14 Dec 1983 – Wednesday – at Baywood Nursing Home
father: Harry Smith
mother: Nettie Beebe
brother: Harry
—–
1907 moved to Mason county
lived on a farm in Sherman Township for 35 years
1942 moved to Ludington, Michigan
occupation: housekeeper – Millers Motel and Stearns Hotel
surviving a few cousins
Interment: Lakeview Cemetery
=====
Ludington, Michigan
Ludington Daily News – Dec 15, 1983 (1983 wrong date on head)
Thursday
https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=sphjAAAAIBAJ&sjid=eksDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6096%2C7355171
The newspaper collection title has date of 1963 and not 1983 which it the correct date.
Note: I’ve found this arrangement of the information is much easier to read and much easier to work with.
Once I had the screen print and the text file, I created a tree for Romelia Beebe.
Tree Created: Romelia Beebe obit 1983 – Mich – owner:josemunoz2546
Link to tree: http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/104966220/family
I then started looking at the leaf hints and picking up the records that I could confirm. One such record was a marriage for Romelia’s brother Harry.
Michigan, Marriage Records, 1867-1952
—–
Name: Mr Harry Beebe
Gender: Male
Race: White
Birth Year: abt 1902
Birth Place: England
Marriage Date: 27 Jul 1942
Marriage Place: Ludington, Mason, Michigan, USA
License County: Mason
Age: 40
Residence Place: Muskegon, Michigan
Father: Harry Beebe
Mother: Nettie Smith
—–
Spouse: Marie Subora
County File Number: 98
State File Number: 53 2507
Film: 148
Film Title: 53 Mason 1270-54 Mecosta 99
Film Description: Mason (1934) – Mecosta (1926)
I put Marie on the tree.
I then looked in the newspaper for news about the wedding and found this:
Notice that the wedding item gives me many new names and relationships I can now put on the tree. These will lead to more new records.
Miss Marie L Subora
Harry F Beebe of Muskegon
united in marriage
at St. Simon’s Roman Catholic church
Monday morning
================
Marie –
father: Alex Subara
mother: Mrs. Subora
address: 402 West Tinkham Ave
=============
Mrs. Clifford Subora of Flint
sister-in-law of bride
Raymon G Subora – Flint
brother of bride
Clifford Subora – Flint
brother of bride
will live at: 1098 Second St, Muskegon, Michigan
Harry is a building contractor
Marie has been kindergarten teacher
at Lakeview school
====================
Harry –
mother: Mrs. Nettie Beebe (widow)
of Scottville – she was a well known Mason county farmer
==========================================
Ludington, Michigan
Ludington Daily News – Jul 28, 1942
https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=GyJMAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ijwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6379%2C1045901
===================================
Another record I found was Marie’s birth record
I then found a date for Nettie death and looked for news item for that and found both an obit and a funeral item on two different dates. I put the two items together on a screen print.
I then found her Find A Grave memorial and created a screen print of that because it had some extra information on it.
I then looked at her husband’s hints and did a search to find this death index
So I had some good information and screen prints for the Beebe family and put all the items on the tree.
I put names on the Subaro branch and started picking up hints and found some small items for the tree:
I then found a death notice for Ernest Subaro
With this information I was able to find a funeral item for Ernest Subaro
I then found an obit for the father Alex
Then I found an obit for the mother which had a clue as to where I would find the daughters obit.
Notice the information provided; “Nine days after her daughter’s death…” Having that clue I found this:
So from one little spinster’s obit I was able to create a family tree with two major branches:
The following is a list of all the people on the tree with full names and dates
I also found six (6) family trees that had Marie Subaro Beebe on their branches
One of the things you will run into when working on your tree and reviewing other trees is that many people have wrong information and these trees are no different. Many of the trees had a death date for Marie Subaro Beebe as Oct 1967 and I found the record that they were using for the date. It was a Social Security death record.
What I saw on the record was a different birth date than what I had on my Marie. My date was confirmed by other records so I knew my date was correct. I contact the family tree owners and told them about the error and sent them the obituary for here which has a different date. I also put this Flint Marie info into my files so that I can trace her family and perhaps find her obit.
I create a folder for each of the family trees I create and copy all the records I use on the tree. It gives me a record of items I’ve found and have used on the tree and also items I’ve found that don’t exactly fit the tree but could be relatives. Here are the records I have for the Romelia Obit Tree.
I hope this post has given you some new information or new ideas you can use to build your family tree.
Thank You.
Genealogical Collection 
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