Worcester Public Library question

[corky3]

  After spending the summer down in New Bedford concentrating on my family research there I am turning my attention back to Worcester. I will probably be going down next Thursday.

   My question is this. I hope to concerntrate on going through the newspaper archives for obituaries. Unfortunately I do not have exact dates of deaths. If a person, for example, is listed in the 1930 Census and is around 70 years old the presumption is he died probably within the next two years. But going throught 10 years of microfilm is a monumental endeavor. I noticed in the New Bedford library volumes of deaths per year.

   Does the Worcester Public library have that kind of set of volumes for the Worcester and its inhabitants? I would probaby need something going from 1900 to probably the 1950s.

   Also I noticed a cabinet for microfilm of naturalization information from the national archives. In New Bedford the listing seemed to have concerned in the Rhode Island area. I would assume the films concentrates on the inhabitants of the particular area who applied for naturalization. Does WPL have something like that?

[merski]

You can use the Worcester city directories to get  a death date.  Start with the census year and go forward.  This is a handy and fast way to get a death date...I'm not certain if all deaths are give and we're talking 20th century.   Also I have used the city directories to see which adult children were still living at home and their occupations.

[corky3]

  Thank for the information.

   I know the New Bedford Town Clerk can look dates up for you if you have an approximate time frame. They have an alphabetic system in place besides the books of the various years. I am not sure for how much of their information this involves but I was able to obtain documents with month and year span pretty easily.

   At this point I am not really looking for that kind of official documentation-I probably will later for a few ancestors but I am finding -for the most part-I can get most of the information off the obits plus which is turning out to be much cheaper.

  This is a nuts and bolts question. I am thinking you read the obits off a microfilm machine and print from there. How are they? Frankly the NB were in pretty bad shape and had to have several reprinted several times before I got a readable copy. I only had so many quarters .

  Also someone suggested thre was an alternate newspaper-the Catholic Messenger(?) where they may have more detailed obits for Irish relatives. Is that also on microfilm at WPL?

[merski]

The Messenger is on microfilm but only so many years.  You may need to email or call to find out what years are available.  They also have the Worcester Evening Post in which I have found irish-born obits.  Copies from them are 25 cents and I have had rather good luck in getting a good copy.  They will also help you if there are printer problems.  Merski

[corky3]

 On my way to Worcester this morning.

    I did ask and it appears the Catholic Messenger is only available on microfilm for the years 1887 through 1907. Not much help to me since most of the people I seek are well after that period. Maybe the evening paper may be of help.

[corky3]

  Back from WPL. Pretty successful day. Didn't accomplish as much as I wanted but finding the obits was much harder than I thought. Had no luck,beyond the interest factor, with the Messenger.

   Thank you for the directory tip. I did find several actual death dates listed. Unfortunately some just got narrowed down a bit more to a year. I especially had trouble with some of the wives which did not appear to be listed although they were still alive in the Census.

   I am thinking of going back to St. John's Cemetery to see if they can help me with more specific death dates. Unfortunately the date in the directory was off by 4 days in one case which lead me in a wild goose chase for awhile.

   And I could not seem to find any Sunday editions. I started looking in 1919 and unfortunately my relatives seemed to have the bad habit of dying near the week-end.

   Anyway as Arnold said I'll be back. I barely scratched the surface.