FROM THE LOCAL NEWSPAPERS - Certainly when family history research gets as far back as the nineteenth century, along with census returns to some extent, and also some other documents, the very best source of information is usually within one of the various local newspapers that were gradually emerging at that time. As that century wore on more and more people had an opportunity to learn to read, although some perhaps only at a night class, so as time went on, at least, one person in a household, or in a public house, who could read a newspaper out loud to other people in attendance. More national newspapers, and more variety of newspapers, were printed as readerships increased, and over time the many local newspapers, that often, in the early days, just mentioned crimes and the criminals, gradually started include other local news items. With no photographs to help tell a story in the early newspapers, some descriptions can sometimes be quite explicit. And, of course, some subjects, and some words used then will be frowned upon today, but in two hundred years time, no doubt, our ways of doing things will be frowned upon, too.