when I worked on an extremely difficult geneology project, where much of the family had absolutely no birth or death records - newspaper obits become an unbelie

when I worked on an extremely difficult geneology project, where much of the family had absolutely no birth or death records - newspaper obits become an unbelievably accurate way to find out a person’s siblings, when they were born/died, and geographical information. Old records, especially those of african americans, were often completely incorrect, mispelled, or missing entirely - but obits don’t really ever lie. I’d write my own but I’m afraid there’s not much to write about.