A good friend was with me. I worked on my some of my challenging ancestors; she spent the time extending her mother's family a couple more generations -- much to her joy.
The night before we went, she talked on the phone to a relative who had mentioned, "you know, there was a murder in the family." She called and got as many details as she could: year, names, place, etc.
Unfortunately the place was "Indian Territory," the last name was correct, the first name wasn't, the year was correct.
"Indian Territory" is a rather big territory to look in for someone.
When we got back to her home Friday night, I got to thinking: if there was a murder, there's likely a newspaper story about it. Off to GenealogyBank.com. On the second try with a search of
first name: [blank this time]
keywords: murder
date: 1887
brought up these two articles with lots of details!
With these articles my friend not only has a description of the tragic murder in Burlingame, Kansas on 28 March 1887 of Ella Ruilison Gould by her husband Frank Gould leaving 3 young children parent-less, but she has many clues to use to trace the mother back in the family.
