Compiled by Anna Crumrine & edited by Richard F. Sheil
The Chautauqua County Genealogical Society was the recipient of a large data base comprised of reportage culled from the Jamestown Journal, and covering the period 1826-1868. The data base represents hundreds of hours of work by the donor, Mrs. Anna Crumrine of Nova, Ohio. In making the gift to the Society , it was her wish that the material could be made available to all either via a computer Compact Disc or in printed book form. The undersigned took on the task of putting the material in a form suitable for printing.
Of necessity, some changes had to be made in the interests of paper and print economy, i.e., the elimination of obituary poems, of long clippings which had material, while not uninteresting, had nothing to do with genealogy. In the four files called, Jamestown News, one often encounters the name of a person with nothing more than the word Obit. Most often in these cases, nothing was given except the person\’s name followed by a sentimental poem, with of course, no personal information. At times, the truncation of a story may seem rather abrupt, but again, what was eliminated had no genealogical value.
The book is divided into two major sections. In the first section of four parts, plus the index, are clippings of newsworthy items, accidents, court proceedings, Civil War news, casualties, farm news, and some early history of the county. Since the original material arrived in four separate files, it was deemed wise to keep the organization the same. The files are arranged as: Jl 1846-1863; J2 1863- 1865; J3 1865-1866; J4 1840-1868. The index lists persons\’ names with the proper \”J\” section in which the entry will be found. The second section has two parts: Jamestown Marriages 1826- 1868; Jamestown Deaths 1826-1868. The Marriages section has been presented twice, once where the list is alphabetized on the name of the Groom, the second on the name of the Bride.
The Society is very grateful to Mrs. Crumrine for the gift. It is material which will be used and appreciated by many. The undersigned is also very much indebted to Norwood Barris for his help in making MS-Access, MS-Works, MS-Word and Corel WordPerfect do what I wanted them to do!
Richard F. Sheil
Fredonia, NY
March 2000
