Friday, October 26, 2007

Nuggets from the newspapers

I've spent several hours tonight putting "brick wall ancestors" names into the "Stories and Publications" search box on Ancestry.com. I've had quite a bit of luck finding books with my possible Lewis ancestral families, to the extent that I need to order some microfilms to gather vital records data in Long Island and Staten Island records from the 1670-1770 time period.

The biggest surprise were several "nuggets" found in the Newspaper clippings from the Sussex (NJ) Register, 1897-1899 concerning my David Auble. These items were in a column titled "Ancient Local History, compiled from The Register," which was published in Newton, Sussex County, New Jersey.

1) From the Register for 4 April 1838:

"David J. Foster and David Auble form partnership and begin business as shoemakers in building recently occupied by George Dennis, and next to W.T. Anderson's law office."

David Auble (1817-1894) is my 2nd great-grandfather who married Sarah Knapp in 1844. David Foster was a brother-in-law, married to Sarah's sister Hannah Knapp in 1839. The two David's were partners, and David foster probably introduced David Auble to his future wife.

2) From the Register, 10 September 1844:

"William Auble, a native of Sussex, and a brother to David Auble, stabbed to death during a quarrel in Philadelphia, by two brothers , who sang obscene songs as Auble was returning from a party with ladies. Auble had a loaded pistol, but did not use it. The deceased and the men who sent him to an untimely grave were intimate acquaintances, and but for improper use of strong drink the trouble never would have occurred."

I do not have this William Auble in the family of John and Anna (Rau) Auble. In the 1830 census, there are 5 boys enumerated, and I only had the names of three of them (David, Robert and Hampton). What a sad story.

The Register newspaper in the late 1890's was picking one story from each day in the old newspapers - it's just luck that they picked these two stories on this particular day. Now I wonder if there are archives of this newspaper back in the 1830-s and 1840's that would have the full stories, and probably more about my Auble and Knapp families that resided in Newton. I visited there one day back in 2004 - they have a nice county library on the north side of town. Another item for my "to-do" list.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

eDKbU9 The best blog you have!