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Finding Your Folks: Old newspapers at your fingertips
By JUDY FOWLER KILGORE I’ve been telling you guys, for a couple of years now, to “bite the bullet” and buy this book, or that book, or join this organization or that one. So, recently I took my own advice, bit the bullet, and added another of Ancestry.com’s services to my list of genealogy tools. A few years ago, Ancestry announced that it was putting actual images of old newspapers online and offering subscriptions to the service. This was in addition to its regular database service and census images. When I checked for the names of the newspapers they had available, most were from New York or “up north” somewhere where none of my relatives ever were. So I let it go, knowing they would be adding more newspapers as time went by. This year, when they notified me that my subscription was up for renewal, I called and inquired about the newspaper subscription, since I had seen several references to my ancestors mentioned in the newspaper database when I did a general search. I also knew they had added many editions of the Atlanta Constitution to the database. They offered me a super deal which I couldn’t turn down and told me it would be added to my subscription within the hour. I couldn’t wait to spend the afternoon browsing through old Journals and Constitutions, reliving Atlanta’s history and, hopefully, finding some of my ancestors’ names among the pages. I was delighted to find Constitutions from 1868 through the present, not complete, but enough that you could get a pretty accurate picture of our fair neighbor to the north and things that were happening in those days. (I often jokingly say that I live in Newnan and Atlanta is one of its larger northern suburbs.) The database indicated that it also had available the “Daily Constitution” in 1865, but when I pulled this one up, it was actually a newspaper from Petersburg, Va. They need to correct that reference, but it dawned on me that here was a newspaper record of Civil War times and the aftermath, and I felt lucky to have stumbled upon it. Since there were so few newspapers in the early days, the news items in this issue included news from all over the state and, often, all over the country. I browsed and found a reference to Atlanta. There, on page four of the July, 1865 Petersburg, Va. paper, was a little “blurb” about the “destitution in Atlanta.” The article stated there were 35,000 men, women and children starving around Atlanta, according to the number who had applied for relief. These people were dependent upon the U.S. Government for survival, the article said. General Thomas had recently ordered that several thousand bushels of corn be distributed among the needy. It was noted that the article first appeared in the Chattanooga Gazette. One can only imagine what our state was like at that time. There were several items in this same issue which noted reorganization of some of the southern states and officials who had been appointed to head up reorganization efforts. Very interesting reading. But back to the Atlanta Constitution. I jumped ahead to the early 1900s and came across what must have been a spectacular court case in Clayton County in August of 1906. Although it was news to me, some of you who are early residents of Fayette and Clayton counties may remember hearing about this case. I will paraphrase and condense for the sake of space. It appears that a Leon Milner had been accused of fatally shooting a B.H. Dorsey, both prominent men in the area. The shooting stemmed from an argument between the two, and involved Milner’s association with Dorsey’s 14-year-old daughter, a situation which Dorsey had warned Milner about. The two had a run-in, Milner shot Dorsey and subsequently went to trial. Milner was acquitted, claiming self-defense. Ten minutes after the verdict was rendered, Milner was being taken back to the jail to get his clothes, when he was shot five times by three assailants. These assailants were later caught and charged. Milner was still alive but not expected to live. The three accused of the crime were L.L. Dorsey, Otis Dorsey and A.L. Norris. I guess you know I almost fell off my chair again because a later story identified A.L. Norris as being superintendent of the Nunnally Candy Company. I am not sure, but I think this may be my cousin, Arthur Leland “Buddy” Norris, who later started the Norris Candy Company. All three were released on bond and denied having anything to do with the shooting. The article said the three would probably not be brought to trial until February (1907). I haven’t found the issue where the trial was held, but I will continue to look. If anyone knows anything about this, I believe our readers would enjoy hearing about it. The point I’m trying to make in telling you about the newspapers is that I believe anyone will gain a great genealogy resource with a subscription to this service. All the newspaper databases are searchable and, although I haven’t fully gotten the hang of it quite yet, I turned up some interesting items. The database is said to contain more than 6 million pages from more than 400 newspapers across the country. I will probably stay up many nights until the wee hours browsing through newspapers and playing with my new “toy.” If you know of a helpful genealogy resource, write and tell me about it. I also welcome your letters about genealogy and info on south metro Atlanta families. Send them to The Citizen, Drawer 1719, Fayetteville, GA 30214; e-mail jkilgore@thecitizennews.com or jodiek444@aol.com. Until next week, happy hunting! (Judy regrets that time does not permit her to do personal research for others.)
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