Old Trunk in the Attic's #AtoZChallenge Theme Reveal

Every April rolls around and I enjoy reading blog posts other bloggers write for the A to Z April Blogging Challenge and get the idea to try it myself. This challenge is open not only to genealogy bloggers, but all bloggers of any topic. Each participant can choose their own theme related to their blog topic to write about. Every year April is suddenly here and I'm not prepared to do 26 posts in 26 days. I don't write daily. For those who aren't familiar with my blog, I should point out that I know writing is not my strong point. I just write to share the things I've learned about my family history.

Last April I decided to pre-plan for 2019. After debating between a couple of ideas, I decided for my theme to write about the Newspaper Clippings I've found in relation to my family history research.  I stashed clippings in a folder to include and have spent the last few months writing about them. So this year I am ready for 26 days of blogging. 

Most tombstones have a year, then a dash, then a year. I love to use newspapers to help change that dash to a documentary on my ancestors. Digitized, searchable newspapers are fantastic for adding insight and character to a person. It's even better when they are available online. I use as many free sites as possible and I find them through The Ancestor Hunt. I've been making trips to the Nebraska State Historical Society Library in Lincoln for several years collecting clippings of articles from microfilmed newspapers where my ancestors were mentioned. When searching for articles on microfilm, it is almost necessary to know a date of an event. Occasionally, I've gotten lucky finding interesting mentions just by browsing the papers, but I don't have much opportunity for that. The newspaper clippings I post in this series will come from both microfilmed and digitized newspapers.

I hope you will follow along and maybe try searching for your own ancestors in the