Each week on Randy Seaver’s Genea-musings blog he has a post for Saturday night Genealogy fun. Because of the time difference, I have called my series Sunday Afternoon Genealogy Fun. This week’s mission was:
1) What happened in the world on the day your maternal grandmother was born? Tell us the date, the place, and find a newspaper page for that date, ideally from the place she was born. What are some of the headlines? What was the weather?
2) Tell us in your own blog post, or in comments to this post, or in comments on Facebook. As always, please leave a link to your work in Comments.
Here’s mine
My maternal grandmother, Edith Meriden Docwra, was born 26 Jan 1904, in Prahran, Victoria, Australia.
The newspaper I chose was The Age from Trove. The front page had the family notices and advertising. Page 2 was advertising as well. It wasn’t until page 5 that there seemed to be any news.

The headlines were:
- Death of Sir Graham Berry
- The Far East Crisis
- Imperial Fiscal Reform
- South Africa
- Porridge as a Diet
The articles on Page 6 were:
- The State Elections
- Political Organisation
- Military Equipment
- Inter-state Cricket
- Fatalities and Accidents
- The Fire at Wallaroo
This page also had an article about the weather:

The Sporting Notes were on Page 8


Isn’t it strange that old newspapers tended to put ads way in the front of the paper and didn’t have any real news until the back pages? I found the same thing in my search.
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