Follow Friday: Two Very Helpful Posts from Today

I learn something from blogs almost every day.

Tonight, right after I had posted my Family and Friends Newsletter Friday, I read Sheri Fenley’s The Educated Genealogist and was directed to a wonderful series of videos featuring interviews with Helen Leary on the National Genealogical Society’s website (Helen Leary Videos – She Had Me At “Genealogy Is Fun”). I watched them all, and they were wonderful.

Then, on Brenda Joyce Jerome’s Western Kentucky Genealogy Blog, I found an interesting post: With Answers Come Questions – John L. Tolley. It mentioned Chronicling America on the website of the Library of Congress. I was aware of this project from a visit to the Library of Congress that was arranged by the Fairfax Genealogy Society around this time last year. However, I hadn’t checked the site recently, so I went to take a look.

I knew that the last time I had checked there hadn’t been any Dallas newspapers, and there weren’t any this time, either. However, there are images of issues of the Fort Worth Daily Gazette. I figured I could at least do searches for articles on my great-great uncle, William Henry Lewis, who had been Sheriff of Dallas County from 1886 to 1992. Sure enough, a number of articles popped up using different search combinations. Of particular interest to me was the following (this will be an early Transcription Tuesday post):

From the Forth Worth Daily Gazette, Fort Worth, Texas, December 21, 1888, page 3, image 3 (under Local Notes and Personal):

“Sheriff Henry Lewis left last night to spend Christmas with his parents in North Carolina, after an absence of 15 years.”

Well, the North Carolina part is incorrect; the state in question was South Carolina. However, this helps to confirm the year 1873 as the year Henry came to Texas from South Carolina (my other source for this is a tribute written by the husband of one of the children Henry and his wife Julia Mister Lewis helped to raise). It also gives me a time frame for eventually searching the local South Carolina newspapers for news of his visit. I also know that Henry’s father Elisha Berry Lewis died early the next year, on 23 February 1889, so I am glad to see that Henry was able to visit his father one last time.

So, I would like to express my gratitude to Sheri and Brenda – thanks to you ladies, I have had an interesting, educational, and productive evening!