Another thing to think about for Irish names - try putting an O' in front of some of them - I searched for Heffernan and found some of them listed as O'Heffernan.

Family notices hold heaps of info for the researcher.

In funeral notices you get names of children, at least the surviving ones, which helps you with offspring and their dates, but in older notices you get even more. As women weren't invited to funerals, their husbands were. This gives you the married names of daughters, even though you have to track down which girl married whom. This changed in the early 20th century and women were included with their married surnames.

The ettiquette of funeral notices is very interesting. In many instances only the male head of the household "invited" family and friends to funerals............ e.g when my grandmother's 19 year old sister died, "Mr David Sinclair invites .... to the funeral of his daughter, Annie..." with no mention of her mother. A second notice said "Friends of Messrs. ROBERT, DAVID, THOMAS, JAMES, and DUNCAN SINCLAIR are respectfully requested to attend the Funeral of their deceased beloved Sister, ..." with no mention of her 4 sisters.

In a friends family, when her grandfather's second wife died, only her children were mentioned by name, and the 2 eldest step-daughters were not, but it was noted she was "wife, mother, step-mother..."

Another local funeral, for a young man who had committed suicide after an altercation with his young wife, his wife was not mention in the notices and was apparently not invited to the funeral.

Funeral notices also gave you an address, as many funeral left from the residence and the exact address woud be give. Far cry from today when funeral parlours are in every suburb.