Obituaries are the obit-chinest . . . .

Leafing the tree. Last week I noted the usefulness of obituaries. They often identify parents, children, and siblings of the deceased and provide a means to move forward in time, as well as deeper into the past. This week's research only confirms that belief and more. I've added some 50 people to my tree since research began on the Griffith Family Bible documents. Most of these people found their way to Macon county from Wales to farm or mine coal, and now rest in one of the cemeteries in Bevier.

Collaborating with another genealogist on Facebook introduced me to the Newspapers.com website. Today, I'm at day six of a free seven day trial, and I've managed to research, clip,and download 29 articles and obituaries. Understand that the site does not include every edition of every newspaper ever published. It is not a magic bullet. In fact, without the Denver Post or Rocky Mountain News, Colorado newspapers are poorly represented. Unfortunate. But for my ancestors living in and around Macon County, Missouri, the site contains multiple newspapers (The Bevier Appeal, The Macon Chronicle-Herald, et al.), that record neighborly social calls, and visits to and from various family members, in addition to obituary and interment information.

 One other note . . . .

I often fall into a data-collection trance, focusing more on cutting, pasting, and correctly citing documents, photos, and certificates that make up the foundation of my genealogy philosophy. I sometimes forget about the human element. Discovering these obituaries changed some of that if only for awhile, sketching lives and highlighting moments of triumph and heartbreak. Some obituaries are brief, providing only the barest of information, others are richly detailed. At the very least they have clarified, corrected, and supplemented the Daniels branch of my family tree and provided another tool for future research.