My most recent favorite discovery isn’t a specific person, but instead is a source! Newspapers.com had a free weekend for Presidents Day. I didn’t really expect much because I can access the site for free from home with my library card, but this also included the Plus edition. Still, I really didn’t expect much because I’d had a subscription a couple of years ago and thought I’d exhausted my options there. But it was free, so I decided to give it a try. I started by searching for some of my Petrini cousins. I found a handful of obituaries in New York newspapers. I already had most of them from online obituaries, but I like to have the scan of the print edition when possible, so that was a plus. Not a huge discovery, but still nice.
Next I decided to search for my Weiss line. It is a large line, and I’ve been researching it for almost twenty years, so I didn’t expect to fine much. I started by searching for my grandfather’s cousin, Josie Weiss Shirk. I’d found her in the California Death Index about 15 years ago, so I knew she’d died in 1958 in Los Angeles. I’ve been looking for an obituary ever since, with no success. But this time…..there is was!