Old clippings

My great Aunt May (Mary Eliot Nichols) loved to write about family history and to collect and save relevant newspaper clippings. She also tended to make scrapbooks. She pasted (or glued) various clippings onto the pages of blank books, or sometimes onto pages of real (but no longer needed) books. 

Here is an example of a few isolated pages that probably had been been in a 3-ring binder. Small clippings are attached on both sides of each page. Aunt May wrote on the first one: "Found in pocket of an old diary these clippings"

Click on image to enlarge

Unfortunately she didn't date when she did this, nor reveal whose diary contained the collection of clippings. Nor did she arrange the clippings in order by date. Many of them lack dates, but even those that are dated seem in random order. The common theme is death notices of family members or family friends. Fascinating tidbits of information about people are included, but in a rather frustrating format, lacking context of when published or in which newspaper. All of these people had connections to my Danvers ancestors, and their death dates could be confirmed in genealogical records. (MyHeritage.com is the resource I have used this year as I've sorted family papers.)

Note: You may click on any of these images to view enlarged versions.  I will write my next blog entry about some of the items in this last page of clippings.