The Library of Congress has made available a very nice time capsule of the Shenandoah Herald newspaper from 1900 to 1910.

Pictureed at the right is a blurb mentioning my great-great grandfather, William Will, and my great grandparents, Luther Samuel Zirkle and Bessie Jordan Will Zirkle, from April 10, 1903.

After a few minutes browsing, I also came across the following note about my great-great-great grandfather, Samuel Frederick Will, in the Friday, September 12, 1902 edition of the Herald:

Mount Clifton

Mr. Sam’l Will, after an illness of about 10 days, passed peacefully away Thursday morning. He was a severe sufferer and death came as a relief. His funeral was by his pastor, Rev. C. S. Coe, assisted by Revs. Litzer and Folk.

A couple of paragraphs down, in the same section, we find a mention of one of Samuel’s sons, Jackson Lee Will:

Mr. J.L. Will, of this place, will travel for the Fraternal Relief Association of Richmond, an Odd Fellows organization, for Odd Fellows only in good standing.

Now, even though a full text search is available, the quality of the scanned text is rather poor. Besides, it is very difficult to search for the surname Will and get any useful results at all. However, searching for Zirkle gives us all kinds of interesting history about our family in the Valley.