Searching Old Newspapers: Finding the Details about Your Family

While searching GenealogyBank’s Historical Newspaper Archives recently, I found several articles about my grandfather Willard H. Kemp.

An article about Willard Kemp, Daily Advocate newspaper article 26 February 1901
Source: GenealogyBank, Daily Advocate (Stamford, Connecticut), 26 February 1901, page 3

I didn’t know that.
They gave my grandfather a silver watch? As “a reward for collecting the most money of any child in the Sunday-school.”

He was only 8 years old.
How much money could he possibly have collected?

I also discovered that he was the pitcher and team captain for the Whippoorwill Juniors, a baseball team in Stamford, Connecticut, when he was 13 years old.

An article about Willard Kemp, Daily Advocate newspaper article 15 April 1905
Source: GenealogyBank, Daily Advocate (Stamford, Connecticut), 15 April 1905, page 4

I didn’t know that either.

Yale & Towne, a lock company, was founded in Stamford in 1868. The company grew – this is how it looked in 1897 when my grandfather was 5 years old.

Illustration: Yale & Towne Manufacturing Co, 1897
Illustration: Yale & Towne Manufacturing Co, 1897. Credit: Henry Roland; Wikimedia Commons.

A major company in town, it spread over multiple city blocks and was the largest employer in Stamford.

I knew that my grandfather was a salesman for Yale & Towne. What I didn’t know was that he had attended the Merrill Business College to qualify for that position.

I found this article showing that he graduated from the business school on 28 June 1909, when he was 17 years old.

An article about Willard Kemp, Daily Advocate newspaper article 30 June 1909
Source: GenealogyBank, Daily Advocate (Stamford, Connecticut), 30 June 1909, page 2

Details, details.
Each one tells a bit of my grandfather’s story, and helps complete the story of our family history.

Thanks to GenealogyBank I now know more about my grandfather.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *