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closein the redzone: Internet search gives insight to family history in the ring
Shaun Scott
When people think of rediscovering their family history, most individuals would think going through countless boxes in their garage or carport would possibly yield the results they were striving to locate.
In this day and age I discovered all it takes is a click of a computer mouse.
Growing up, my father always talked about his grandfather and my great grandfather, “Indian” Pete Scott, who was a Canadian Indian lightweight professional boxer.
So about a month ago I decided to search the Internet to check out his boxing record.
After about one minute of skimming through the search engine, I discovered results matching up with my great-grandfather on a boxing web site titled www.boxrec.com.
Pete Scott compiled an overall record of 12-12-4 during his five-year professional career in the squared circle.
While strolling through his biography I was anxious to find out if he had ever fought for a title or became a champion. In the fifth fight of his career on April 25, 1916, he fought Johnny O’Leary for the Canadian lightweight Title at the Garden Theater in Buffalo, NY. Unfortunately, much to my chagrin my great grandfather was knocked out by O’Leary in the ninth round.
Pete Scott would never fight for a championship title again.
Although he fought 23 more times after this match. He never again would get a title shot before retiring from boxing for good in 1921.
Even though my father who was born in 1947, never met his grandfather, my dad heard plenty of stories from his own father about Pete Scott’s boxing career. Growing up, my dad said he suspected there were some newspaper articles stored away in boxes somewhere in our garage and carport.
During my high school and college days, I used to spend about two days a year scouring through the garage and carport trying to locate past newspaper clippings. Even though I turned up every box I still was unable to uncover any past articles regarding my great grandfather. It was disappointing and I always wished there would be a way I might be able to look him up in the future. It turned out the Internet was the answer to my question.
Even a few years ago when I looked on various Internet search engines, I still came up empty handed. Only a month ago did I try it again before I discovered a page with a biography on my great-grandfather. Immediately after finding the page, I printed out copies for a few of my family members and friends. Rediscovering my family’s roots was a thrilling experience. Even though I’m not the biggest fan of technology, I admit this was an instance where I’ve embraced technology wholeheartedly.