January 30, 2026
Last week I wrote about ways to find info in newspapers about ancestors who lived in areas without their own papers. It’s worth repeating that nearby newspapers may contain articles about folks from surrounding smaller towns and rural areas.
One of the best ways to search those newspapers is to look for local columns from smaller communities. Newspapers from larger towns and cities often hired a local person in a small town to write a weekly or semi-weekly column about events in that town. These columns often had catchy titles (or at least titles that the writer thought were catchy) such as Clinton Clicks or Layton Lines.
The columns themselves are a goldmine of local information. This can include difficult-to-access information. I’d always known that my grandfather and his first wife (not my grandmother) adopted a little boy when they were unable to have children of their own. Adoption records in Utah for the period when the boy was adopted are private and are sealed. In a local South Weber column, I found a blurb listing the date of adoption and even the names of the baby’s biological parents.
In other local columns I have found details about the cause of death for relatives whose deaths predated death certificates. I have also found mentions of non-lethal accidents. For example, the young cousin who chopped off his toe with an axe while splitting kindling wood.
I have also discovered tidbits that didn’t seem all that significant but turned out to hold the key to family mysteries. In one local column, I found a brief note that Mrs. Thomas Jones and her daughter were visiting Mrs. Jones’ brother, Harald Ahlstrom, in Salt Lake City. That note helped solve the mystery of Mrs. Jones’ maiden name.
Sometimes local columns can open doors to information you weren’t expecting. I discovered that my family was mentioned in numerous South Weber columns between 1890 and 1920. Nearly every weekly column for that era had information about my family. The town was small then, but it seemed that my family was getting a lot of attention.
Eventually I noticed that one of the columns had a byline. The column had been written by my great grandfather. I did more digging and talked to an elderly cousin who confirmed that my great grandfather had written all the South Weber columns for a twenty plus year span.
Clearly, he wrote about what he knew – his own family. I would never have discovered my great grandfather’s secret identity as a reporter or learned so much about my family if I hadn’t read local newspaper columns.
If your family lived in a small town or rural area where there wasn’t a local newspaper, check out the local town columns in newspapers from nearby cities or towns. You may find more than you’d think.
Carol Stetser
Researcher
Larimer County Genealogical Society