Hello,

There are city directories on Ancestry for Lincoln, NE from 1873 on (that cover the 1908 time period) and Kansas City, MO from 1865 on. If you let me know your grandfather's name I can look him up the city directories for that time frame, and at least get a range of dates. Happy to help in this direction if you like.

Sincerely,
Em Segal

My apologies--you did say you'd looked in the city directories. Please disregard my earlier response.

Sincerely,
Em Segal

There are a number of newspaper entries in Newspapers.com for Nathan. One notes his address in 1911 is 1941 K street, Lincoln Nebraska. Google Street view shows a building still there that looks to be a match! I would say the photo looks to be from that time period too.

Lee Goodman
Vermilion, Ohio
Lee@...

I second the suggestion of searching newspapers.com. Your grandfather may have run ads for his store or there could be articles referring to his business. I’ve found various family members who advertised in the paper. I also found incidences of fires, shoplifting and other legal problems related to their businesses. All the places you mentioned were much smaller towns a century ago and newspapers printed more than once per day so they were looking for anything to print. I’ve also researched family in all the towns you mentioned and been able to paint quite a picture of them. Chatty small town newspapers are your friend!

Sharon Fleitman 
Atlanta, Georgia

I also recommend newspapers.com.  A friend with a subscription recently found a wealth of information for me on a family friend, whom I never knew was even Jewish.  One item was as small as a notice that her son had been promoted in the Army, but that confirmed the spelling of her first name. 

Sharon Fleitman 
Atlanta, Georgia

 
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Barbara Sloan
Conway, SC

The notices in newspapers for when a business first opens are particularly useful. Other notices for when a business was bought and sold are also relevant; I've been able to use them to track relationships between possible family members.

The ads placed in newspapers are fairly easy for Newspapers.com to pick up, because ads back then were so text-heavy, and often contained the name of the business owner.

Two other sources for searchable older newspapers are Fultonhistory.com and the US Library of Congress' Historical American Newspapers.

One thing I have found - smaller newspapers back then would print news of relatively small events that took place even several counties away. For instance, I found the notice of my grandparents' marriage license, taken out in Hagerstown Maryland in 1913, in the Harrisburg, PA newspaper.
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Michele Lock

Lak/Lok/Liak/Lock and Kalon/Kolon in Zagare/Joniskis/Gruzdziai, Lithuania
Lak/Lok/Liak/Lock in Plunge/Telsiai in Lithuania
Trisinsky/Trushinsky/Sturisky and Leybman in Dotnuva, Lithuania
Olitsky in Alytus, Suwalki, Poland/Lithuania
Gutman/Goodman in Czestochowa, Poland
Lavine/Lev/Lew in Trenton, New Jersey and Lida/Vilna gub., Belarus

Here is a newspaper clipping that gives a lot of information from 1940, St. Joseph News Press, St. Joseph, MO.

Deborah Friedman

Walnut Creek, CA

dsfaec@...

 

Searching for: FRIEDMAN (KOPAIGOROD UKRAINE), SHULMAN/SCHULMAN (KOPAIGOROD UKRAINE), SPECTOR, GOLOGORSKY, KANSTERIN/KANSTEROOM, LIPSON (JERUSALEM), ZASLER (JERUSALEM, ZASLOW), LEVY, GRATZ/GRATCH, EISENSTEIN (DROHITCHIN), BENIOFF (KIEV AREA), SILBERMANN/SILVERMAN (ZEIL GERMANY), DINKELSPIEL(BADEN, GERMANY), MAIER, WIEDERQUIST, HOROWITZ (KIEV AREA), HESS (NEW ORLEANS), SANGER (NEW ORLEANS AND ALSACE), MAROZ (Ignatovka, Ukraine).