[or-roots] Look-up Augusta Bullard - Ancestry.com

[Kith-n-Kin]

Carla
 
I know you aren't bashing Ancestry, but in this case, it looks to me as though you got just what you asked
for!  Outside of the billiards and so on, you asked for Bullard and Oregonian, and that's what you got.
 
The recognition software, in this case, is problematic not because it is necessarily buggy, but because of
what it has to work with. All you have to do is take an old newspaper, scan it into your computer and OCR
it, or make a PDF and OCR that, look at the result, and you will see what I mean. Between the soft paper,
smeary ink, folds, and so on, it's a wonder anything gets read properly.
 
I only mention this because I don't want people to *not* try the newspaper files in looking for
information. You do get a lot of ads and other odd information that has nothing to do with your subject,
but every once in awhile you come up a winner. I found one paper in St. Joseph, Michigan that gave me the
history of one entire line over a period of thirty years. 
 
Another advantage, by the way, is to read the "other headlines" and articles to get a feel of "why
something happened".  I had a fellow who was declared bankrupt, but couldn't figure out why. Then, I found
that a railroad he had been involved in was declared bankrupt also. His name wasn't in the article on the
railroad, but in an article a few years earlier he is found petitioning the township to bring in the
railroad. 
 
Pat (in Tucson)

-----Original Message-----
From: or-roots-admin at sosinet.sos.state.or.us [mailto:or-roots-admin at sosinet.sos.state.or.us] On Behalf Of
CKlooster at aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2006 22:56
To: or-roots at sosinet.sos.state.or.us
Subject: Re: [or-roots] Look-up Augusta Bullard - Ancestry.com



Having a fascination with a speedy new Internet connection, I did a "quick" lookup on Ancestry.com for
Bullard in Oregon with keyword Oregonian.  I found thirty-eight articles referenced and (yawn) looked at
all of them.  Now I'm not going to begin a bash of Ancestry.com because I've found a lot of clues to many
different lines on that site...BUT...I've never found anything of value in the old newspaper searches.
This was no exception.
 
The recognition software is considerably buggy and recognizes all sorts of odd combinations.  In this
instance it found billiards, ballards (Oregon's Governor Ballard made the paper frequently), bustards and
a couple of Bullards out of state...including one who robbed a bank in Boston and one who attested to the
efficacy of a patent medicine in a repeating advertisment.  The only Bullards referenced in Oregon were
A.J. Bullard who was an officer of an odd lodge that met in Druid Hall and his name appeared in the
published meeting notices...frequently.  There was an article about a Rev. H. Bullard who was charged with
assaulting one S.S. Call in a religious argument... S.S. Call was an "Adventist" and Rev. Bullard wanted
him to stop preaching...so he apparently whapped his head a few times on the floor of the blacksmith shop
where Call worked.  Several editions of the Oregonian carried the continuation of that story.  One article
referenced the founding of a lodge in Washington state; one of the founders was a Mrs. Job Bullard and the
lodge was the Willapa branch so I'm assuming it was in Pacific County.  There was a brief mention in
another article of Bullard Ranch as a proposed county seat...but I couldn't read which county...or even
which state.  There was a later reference to Bullard's beach.  Obituaries for the surname Bullard are
recent and mostly associated with the Kiser family.
 
So there you go!
 
Carla
 
 

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