Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all
counties had newspapers with obituaries for all of our ancestors? It doesn’t always work that way, though, and
we need to have an alternate plan. What would you do? My suggestion is to expand your research
beyond the county lines. Sometimes ancestors were known in adjoining counties
because of their work or because their children lived in those counties.
The following obituary for a resident of Henderson County, Kentucky appeared first in his local newspaper[1] and then in a newspaper in Hopkins County.[2] The decedent was born in Livingston County, lived also in Crittenden County and had a daughter who formerly lived in the town where the obituary appeared. Oh – his wife was a resident of still another county. Confused yet? Read the obituary and you will understand.
“Henderson, Ky., Sept. 1 – Dr. Joseph Anthony Hodge, one of the veteran physicians of Western Kentucky, is dead.
“Dr. Hodge was born in Livingston county February 2, 1829, and graduated at the Louisville University, class of 1850, and practiced at Marion, in Crittenden county, until 1863, when he moved to Henderson. He married Miss Susan Linthicum, of Muhlenberg county. He had been president of the State Medical Society and also medical examiner. He was the father of Edwin Hodge, Western Kentucky manager of the Imperial Tobacco Company. Mrs. C.H. Dishman, of Henderson, formerly of Madisonville, and another daughter survive. Wm. Hodge, a son, also survives.”
The lesson here is that if you don’t have access to a newspaper where your ancestor died, sometimes you have to expand your research area to find the information you need.
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