Free Searches to Uncover Lost Stories
 

There are many ways of uncovering stories that are lost under the debris of time. Going ‎online is one of the most effective options. If you chosen to do the needful by manually ‎browsing through different newspapers, this article can help you with some advanced ‎options that can lead you to quench your quest.‎

‎- With the knowledge of the name of the publisher of the newspaper or the magazine ‎where the obituary was featured, you can visit them personally or go to their website. If ‎you are using Google search engine then type in the newspaper’s name, name of the ‎deceased and the term ‘obituary’. If the date of publication is old, the possibilities of ‎getting details get slimmer.‎

‎- Without the knowledge of the publishers, there are some yet advanced techniques that ‎can yield fruitful results. Some of them are as follows:‎
‎-‎ Start your search with Google news. This will open innumerable pages from ‎websites of different newspapers. No matter how old your obituary is, you can ‎always give it try. Google news opens the pages of newspapers only, this helps in ‎short-listing your search.‎
‎-‎ Google archive search can be visited once you came out futile of Google news. ‎For $3.95, you can have the total obit for you. ‎
‎-‎ You can type in different variations of the dead person’s name. Possibilities are ‎there that there are some spellings errors, initials or even pet names. E.g. if you are ‎looking Robert, try typing Bob. Don’t rule out any possibility when you are on a ‎wild goose chase. ‎
‎-‎ The command "inurl" should be used as follows: type in the search tab – ‎‎(inurl:obituaries "James Smith" died 1987) – this command will ensure the search ‎of all pages are made where the word "obituaries" is present in the URL, and that ‎contain ("James Smith" died 1987) somewhere inside the page. Follow the same ‎instruction with inurl: genealogy, inurl: index, inurl: news, inurl: archive and so on. ‎
‎-‎ To do away with extra keywords, you can use the symbol (-). e.g. ("Franklin ‎Roosevelt" obituary -president -D). You can have the liberty of leaving out the ‎word which according to you is not significant for your search. You can make that ‎out from the results of the search that you made in the preliminary stage.‎

The above-mentioned techniques of tracing ancestors or obituaries constitute almost 95% ‎of the possibilities. This helps in focusing the search to the relevant points only, hence ‎ruling out the unwanted pages. For the rest 5% you need to go offline.‎
No matter what online database you use to look for the old records, at some point of time ‎you need to seek help of offline resources. Often certain information go missing in online ‎databases or access is denied. These offline resources help you in such circumstances.‎
Funeral home records is one of the most popular tools of offline searches. If your search ‎is restricted to the burial spot only then you do not need to worry much. But to go deep ‎for more information can be a tough task to accomplish because for that you need the ‎records from the funeral home. You should consider yourself fortunate if that home ran ‎till you start your quest.‎

So, your offline search starts with the funeral home. If some new home had taken it over, ‎track the new one because from there you can get the know-how of the older one. A ‎humble application with all necessary details of your family can help you succeed in your ‎mission. If your letter convinces them they would accept your pleading of genealogy and ‎give you all the information that you looked for.‎

These are the parts that cannot be undertaken through the databases of Internet. ‎However, they would definitely give you an idea of approaching the issue at the first ‎place. ‎

But that does not mean that you can let go the information that you had collected from ‎online resources. In other words, the picture that comes forth is of the cemetery or the ‎burial ground where your ancestor lies and the epitaph of his or her grave found online.‎

You can be complacent with this much only. But if you are interested in even more, ‎consider visiting the cemetery. In this way you will come to know about the religious ‎affiliation, photographs etc. Generally photographs are set under unbreakable glass in the ‎tombstone only.‎

So don't restrict yourself to online. When you are through with acquiring information ‎about your family, try the offline resources even if you do not need anything else. You ‎will not regret. ‎