It Is A Wonder They Found It

Sometimes we complain about OCR and how old newspapers are "read" by machines to make full-text indexes, but there are times when it is amazing that they find what they do.

A search on  Genealogybank  for Peter Sylvester between 1700 and 1820 resulted in several hits, including this image:

Independent Gazetteer (Worcester, MA)  Tuesday, March 17, 1801 obtained on  Genealogybank.

I think it's pretty neat that the machine even recognized that last name as "Sylvester." 

Of course, it made me realize that during this time period, I might have to replace the letter "s" with an "f" in some of my searches. And that initial letter in "Sylvester" almost looks like an 8. The newspaper article is in March, but there are references that Peter died in February--obituary/death notice publication dates might not always be as close to the death date as one might think.

Peter Sylvester is my 6th great-grandfather.

This item was located  on  Genealogybank.