For those of you who have some Indigenous or Native American "blood" in your family tree, there are many Indigenous American newspapers that have been published over the last two hundred or so years that may help you find some information and stories about your ancestors.

Listed are only those that are available online. As always, there are tons more available via microfilm and in original form via libraries and archives.

Please note that some are free and some require a subscription or a login from a university (or local) library. Some are indexed, and some are not. In the Free Collections you may see some duplicates - this is because the newspaper is provided in multiple online sites, so you may wish to search or browse each of the duplicates.
​

(Updated September, 2017)

Free Collections:

Alaska

• The Thlinget. - Sitka, Alaska, 1908-1912
• Tundra Times

Georgia

• Cherokee phoenix. volume - New Echota [Ga.], 1828-1829
• Cherokee phoenix, and Indians' advocate. volume - New Echota [Ga.], 1829-1834
• Cherokee Phoenix

Hawaii

• The Friend

Papakilo Hawaiian Language Newspaper Collection

• Ahailono o ka Lahui

• Hawaii Holomua
• Home Rula Repubalika
• Honolulu Republican

• Ka Elele Hawaii, Ka Elele
• Ka Hae Hawaii
• Ka Hoku o Hawaii
• Ka Hoku o ka Pakipika
• Ka Holomua
• Ka Lahui Hawaii
• Ka Lama Hawaii
• Ka Lanakila
• Ka Lau Oliva
• Ka Lei Momi
• Ka Leo o ka Lahui
• Ka Loea Kalaiaina
• Ka Makaainana
• Ka Malamalama o Hawaii, Ka Lei Rose o Hawaii
• Ka Manawa
• Ka Naʻi Aupuni
• Ka Nonanona
• Ka Nupepa Elele
• Ka Nupepa Kuokoa
• Ka Nupepa Puka la Aloha Aina
• Ka Nupepa Puka la ko Hawaii Pae Aina
• Ka Oiaio
• Ka Puuhonua, Ka Puuhonua o na Hawaii
• Ke Alahou
• Ke Alakai O Hawaii
• Ke Alakai o Hawaii
• Ke Alakai o Hawaii
• Ke Alaula
• Ke Aloha Aina Oiaio
• Ke Aloha Aina
• Ke Au Hou
• Ke Au Okoa
• Ke Kiai
• Ke Kilohana o ka Malamalama
• Ke Koo o Hawaii
• Ke Kumu Hawaii
• Ko Hawaii Pae Aina
• Ko Hawaii Ponoi
• Kuokoa Home Rula
• Kuu Hae Hawaii

• Nuhou
• Nupepa Puka La Kuokoa

• O ka Hae Katolika

• The Liberal

Minnesota

• Red Lake news. - Red Lake, Minn., 1912-1921
• The Tomahawk. - White Earth, Becker County, Minn., 1903-192?
• The Progress. - White Earth, Minn., 1886-1889
• Iapi Oaye 
• The Ojibwe News 
• The Word Carrier

Montana

• ​Char-Koosta 
• Char-Koosta News 
• Char-Koosta 
• Wotanin 
• Wotanin Wowapi 

Fort Peck Reservation Newspapers

• Poplar Shopper
• Poplar Standard

New York

• Indian Time

North Dakota 

• S'ina sapa wocekiye taeyanpaha = Catholic Sioux herald

​Oklahoma

• The Indian advocate. - Sacred Heart, Okla., 1???-1910
• The Branding iron. - Atoka, I.T. [Okla.], 1884-1884
• Cheyenne transporter. - Darlington, Indian Terr., 1879-1886
• The daily chieftain. - Vinita, Ind. Ter. [Okla.], 1898-1902
• Indian chieftain. - Vinita, Indian Territory [Okla.], 1882-1902
• The Vinita daily chieftain. - Vinita, Indian Territory [Okla.], 1902-1913

Pennsylvania

• Indian Craftsman
• Red Man

Wyoming

• Indian Progress

Native American Obituaries

• The Daily Times (Farmington, New Mexico)
• The Winslow Mail (Winslow, Arizona)
•  Montezuma Valley Sun (Montezuma, Colorado)
• Cortez Journal (Cortez, Colorado)
• Navajo Times (Window Rock, Navajo Nation, Arizona)
• Lake Powell Chronicle (Page, Arizona)

​If you know of any more links to Indigenous American newspapers, please let me know in the comments.  For thousands of other online historic newspapers from all over the U.S., the world, and of all types, please visit Newspaper Research Links

Chronicling America, through its new labs.loc.gov capability, is adding crowdsourcing of historic newspaper cartoons and photographs, which will allow users to provide captions for these images.

From the announcement of this new feature, entitled "Beyond Words":

"The Library of Congress today launched labs.loc.gov, a new online space that will host a changing selection of experiments, projects, events and resources designed to encourage creative use of the Library’s digital collections. To help demonstrate the exciting discoveries that are possible, the new site will also feature a gallery of projects from data challenge winners and innovators-in-residence and blog posts and video presentations from leaders in the field.
​
“We already know the Library of Congress is the ultimate treasure chest, but with labs.loc.gov we are inviting explorers to help crack open digital discoveries and share the collections in new and innovative ways,” said Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. “Whether you’re tagging images from our digitized historic newspapers to help future visitors, or exploring the changing nature of democracy through the 25 million bibliographic records the Library recently made public, we are providing tools and inspiration that will lead to new uses and new ways of looking at the incredible materials here at the Library.”

One of the first features on labs.loc.gov is Beyond Words, a website that invites the public to identify cartoons and photographs in historic newspapers and provide captions that will turn images into searchable data. This fun crowdsourcing program grows the data set of text available for researchers who use visualization, text analysis and other digital humanities methodologies to discover new knowledge from Chronicling America—the Library’s large collection of historic American newspapers. Beyond Words is available as a pilot project to help the Library of Congress learn more about what subsets of Library data researchers are interested in and to grow the Library’s capacity for crowdsourcing."

To read the entire article click on Library Launches labs.loc.gov

This is exciting news that will enable users through crowdsourcing to add captions that when added to the search index, will enable an added search experience of Chronicling America.

This is part of a series of educational posts, intended to provide you with information that will rapidly improve the skills needed to find pertinent newspaper articles from historical newspapers.

Lesson 11 is all about searching old, historic newspapers using specialized keywords in your search criteria to help get better results.

When entering our search criteria in the search box on an online historical newspaper site, we often focus primarily on the name of the target ancestor or family.  We might also search for a location or an address. or combine these with a name.


My guess is that well over 95% of online newspaper searches employ the above techniques.

I offer you some additional ways to hone in on target ancestor articles, and this is to use keywords in your search criteria. Here are some examples, that if used will get you more and better results:

• If you are searching for obituaries, add the keyword "beloved" or "beloved son" or "beloved wife" etc. The word beloved is used frequently in obituaries. So entering these keywords plus the surname may focus in on obituaries.
• Similar to "beloved" try the word "dear", as in "dear husband" or "dear sister." This will also focus in on obituaries.
• A third keyword used in obituaries is "loving".  For example, "loving daughter" or  "loving husband".
• If you are searching for a birth announcement, add in the keywords "born to the wife of"  or "born to" along with the name and that will focus in on articles about births.
• Was your ancestor a business owner?  Add the word "president" or "proprietor" to the name.
• How about lodges and clubs? Try "president" or "chairman" or "secretary" for example.
• Try using the occupation in your search criteria, such as "electrician" or "plumber" in conjunction with the name.

There are likely many more examples. Try adding keywords - you will be glad you did.

This is part of a series of educational posts, intended to provide you with information that will rapidly improve the skills needed to find pertinent newspaper articles from historical newspapers.

Lesson 10 is all about searching old, historic newspapers at the library! (When I say "library" I include archives and educational institutions).

Many history and genealogy researchers who are used to searching for articles about their ancestors, other people, and historical events in historic newspapers have gotten spoiled with the increased number of online collections that are available for free. And many have invested a few dollars (and other currency) in subscriptions to online sites and collections.

But did you know that there are other quite large collections that are available via your local library or a library that may require a little bit more drive time?

One example of such a service is Readex. They have a few thousand titles that are searchable, depending on the subscription that your library has invested in.  I won't comment positively or negatively on their capability or functionality. Just try Readex and other library based sites to expand your research.  (Disclosure:  I do not have any affiliation with Readex/NewsBank - I am using them as an example of library-based services)

Here are some examples of what they might have available with a link to find out the exact titles that are in each collection:

• Early American Newspapers, 1690-1922

• American Ethnic Newspapers

• American Newspaper Archives 

• 20th Century American Newspapers

• Caribbean Newspapers

• World Newspaper Archive

Now, these are online collections that are available only at the library.  And there are others - from Gale, Accessible Archives, Paper of Record, just to name a few.

And guess what - libraries do have microfilmed newspapers and original newsprint.  Since about 20% of all old newspapers have been digitized (author's estimate), do not forget to use these two sources as well.

So, get out of your PJ's and get in your car and go to your library or other institution that have these types of resources available - AND if you have a library card you might just be able to login and search from home!!!

Do not forget to browse microfilm and original newsprint as well.  Does it take more time?  Indeed it does. But these two sources may be the only ones that have an article of importance to you.

Newspapers are being digitized at an increasing rate, so search the free sites online, invest in a subscription as well, but for sure - do not forget the old standby - your library.

For those of you who have some Hispanic or Portuguese in your family tree, there are many Hispanic and Portuguese American newspapers that have been published over the last hundred or so years that may help you find some information and stories about your ancestors.

Listed are only those that are available online. As always, there are tons more available via microfilm and in original form via libraries and archives.

Please note that some are free and some require a subscription or a login from a university (or local) library. Some are indexed, and some are not. In the Free Collections you may see some duplicates - this is because the newspaper is provided in multiple online sites, so you may wish to search or browse each of the duplicates.

(Updated September, 2017)



Free Collections:

Arizona

• Coraje
• El Fronterizo (1882 - 1908)
• El Fronterizo (1926-1929)
• El Hijo de el Fronterizo 
• El Independiente
• El Mosquito
• El Pueblo
• El Tucsonense 
• South Tucson's El Independiente
• The argus.
• El fronterizo. 
• St. Johns herald and Apache news.

California

• Basta Ya 
• Corajon de Aztlan
• Californian 
• El Clamor Publico 
• Hispano America
• La Cronica
• La Prensa
• La Raza 
• Regeneración
• O Arauto
• A California Alegre
• A União Portuguesa
• A Colonia Portuguesa
• O Imparcial--Semanario Independente e Noticioso
• O Jornal de Noticias
• O Lavrador Português  
• A Liberdade
• O Portugal
• O Portugal da California
• O Progresso
• O Progresso Californense
• O Reporter
• A Vox Portuguesa

Florida

• Tampa Latino Periodicals
• Gaceta
• El Yara
• Avaance criollo.

Hawaii

• Aurora Hawaiiana 
• O Luso
• O Luso Hawaiiano
• O Popular
• A Sentinella
• A Uniao Lusitana Hawaiiana

Louisiana

• The Lumberjack.
• El Pelayo.

Massachusetts

• O Colonial 
• Diario de Noticias 
• O Heraldo Portuguez

New Mexico

• The Alamogordo news.
• The Carlsbad current.
• Carrizozo outlook.
• The chieftain.
• The Cimarron news and Cimarron citizen.
• The Clayton citizen. 
• Clayton enterprise. 
• The Clayton news.
• Estancia news-herald. 
• The Estancia news. 
• El farol.
• El Hispano-americano.
• El independiente.
• Las Vegas gazette.
• The Las Vegas weekly optic and stock grower.
• The Lincoln County leader. 
• The Mesilla Valley independent. 
• The morning news.
• Las Nuevas de la Estancia.
• El Nuevo mexicano.
• La Revista de Taos and the Taos cresset. 
• La revista de Taos and the Taos Valley news.
• La revista de Taos. volume
• Santa Fe gazette.
• Santa Fe new Mexican. 
• The Santa Fe weekly gazette.
• Santa Fe weekly gazette. 
• Santa Fe weekly gazette. 
• The Socorro chieftain.
• The Socorro chieftain.
• The Spanish American. 
• La voz del pueblo.
• Western liberal.

New York

• El Diario de Nueva York 
• El Diario la Prensa 

Oregon

• The Voice of the people

Texas

• El Ranchero 
• El Bejareño 
• El Democrata fronterizo (1904-1919) 
• Mexican Citizen 
• El Correo 
• El Regidor 
• El Paso Morning Times

Library Access Only:

Readex/NewsBank Titles

From their Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1981 collection, there are hundreds of Hispanic American newspapers available. Check with your nearby library to see if they have a subscription for this collection.  Clicking on the link will provide you with a list of titles.  .
   
Subscription Sites:

Genealogy Bank

A terrific resource for Spanish language newspapers throughout the U.S. is Spanish-Language Newspapers (1808-1978).  It has a database, sorted by state, that identifies Spanish language titles (hundreds of them). Most of the newspapers are from Arizona, California, New York, New Mexico and Texas.


Good luck!

This is part of a series of educational posts, intended to provide you with information that will rapidly improve the skills needed to find pertinent newspaper articles from historical newspapers.

Lesson 9 is all about searching old, historic newspapers and capitalizing by using abbreviations in your search criteria.

In old newspapers, abbreviations were used to save space. Abbreviations were used to shorten many words - the most notable being given names as well as addresses.

Remember that your search criteria is just a series of letters that are matched against a search index that was created from the scan and OCR process applied to the subject newspaper page.

Your search index database is not smart enough, for example, to interpret "ave." for the word "avenue."  So if you are entering "335 14th Avenue" - if the search index includes "Ave" the search will not be successful. Therefore you must search both "335 14th Avenue" and "335 14th Ave" to get all ;possible results.

Here are some examples of abbreviations that you should employ in your search criteria:

1. For street names, try "ave" and "avenue" Also "st" and "street". There is a great number of others that you should consider for the "type" of "street.
2. For cities, if there is an abbreviation - for example NYC for New York City, or Philly for Philadelphia, try the abbreviation as well as the whole city name.
3. How about business names - "co" and "company", "inc" and "incorporated", etc.
4. Given names can provide a great number of increased results by using abbreviations.  Try abbreviations for names, such as "Wm" for William, or "Jno" for John, or "Jos" for Joseph, "Eliz" for Elizabeth, and "Robt" for Robert, just to name a few. Here is a terrific list from Genealogy In Time.
5. One often forgotten is "Mrs." Remember that married women were not always addressed with their first name in a newspaper article, but were written as Mrs. Robert Smith for example, regardless if their name was Mildred, Margaret, or Mary.  So incorporate that into your search criteria.
6. This one is a bit unique.  But if you are searching classified ads, you can always search for a phone number. We certainly don't know the phone numbers from many 20th century ancestors, but if you happen to find it in a telephone directory, you might find classified ads in newspapers by searching that phone number. When I was a kid, our number was Elgin 1-1696, so I would search for "Elgin" as well as "El" before the numbers.
7. For military titles, try "Capt" for Captain, Col" for "Colonel", Sgt" for Sergeant, etc.

There may be many others, so you need to search for abbreviated words as well as entire words to maximize your search results.  My guess is that you can likely increase your pertinent results by 10 to 20%.

The University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) Libraries has just announced that they have received a grant from the Commission for the Las Vegas Centennial to fund digitization projects.










From the UNLV Library:

"The first grant, for $49,400, will fund the digitization of the Las Vegas Age, which ran from 1905-1947, and the region’s first newspaper, the Las Vegas Times, which ran from 1905-1906. The grant will be used to create an online, searchable versions of the two newspapers through the University Libraries website.

These newspapers are of great historical value for the City of Las Vegas and give a glimpse of what was happening during the early years of Las Vegas,” said Michelle Light, director of Special Collections and Archives. “By adding these historical newspapers to our online collections, we will be able to make them available to researchers around the world and preserve key documents chronicling the history of our community,” Light said."


​To read the entire article, click on: UNLV Libraries Receive Two Grants

​
Terrific News from the State of Nevada!

For access to historic newspapers from the state that are currently available for free online, please check out​​Nevada Online Historical Newspapers Summary. 

Union membership was about 15% in the 1930's and peaked at about 35% in the 1950's in the U.S.  Currently, union membership ps about 10%, even though in the past couple of decades, public sector union membership has increased.

Unions, labor movements and workers had specialty newspapers throughout the country. Some of these have been digitized and the links by state are below. Please note that I have excluded subscription databases from the list.



​
(Updated September, 2017)


Alabama

• Avondale Sun 

California

• California Oil Worker 
• Western Worker 

 
Georgia

• International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Archives 

Hawaii

• Honolulu Record 
• Honolulu Record 

Idaho

• Idaho Forester 

Illinois

• The Communist 
• The Communist 
• The Communist 
• Labor Unity 
• Labor Unity 
• Industrial Union Bulletin  
• American Appeal  
• New Majority 

 
Indiana

• The Marion Socialist 
• Indiana Socialist Party Bulletin 
• Marion Labor Sentinel 
• Freedom's Banner 
• Indiana Socialist 

 
Kentucky

• Ohio Valley Worker : Official Paper Of The Federated Trades Council Of Louisville, Trades And Labor Council Of New Albany, Central Labor Union Of Jeffersonville 
• Ohio valley worker 

Louisiana

• The Voice Of The People
• Lumberjack

Michigan

• Grange Visitor  
• Michigan Farm News 

 
Minnesota

• Minneapolis Labor Review 
• St. Paul Union Advocate 
• The labor world.
• Labor Review 

 
Missouri

• Workers World 

Montana

• Butte Bystander 

Nebraska

• Farmer Labor Herald 

Nevada

• Basic Magnesium, Inc. Newsletters  

New York

• Fighting Worker 1935-1950
• Daily Worker 1922-1941

Ohio

• Ohio Socialist  
• Labor Advocate - (1915-1917)

Oregon

• Farmers Union News

Pennsylvania

• National Labor Tribune 
• Printer's Labor Tribune  

 
South Dakota

• The Daily Dakota Farmers' Leader Volume 

Tennessee

• Southern Worker 

 
Virginia

• The Labor Herald 

Washington

• Pacific Fisherman Journal 
• The Washington Socialist 
• Puget Sound Chemist 
• Industrial Worker
• The Northwest worker. 
• The Northwest worker
• The labor journal. 
• The Labor journal
• The Labor Press Project - Pacific Northwest Labor and Radical Newspapers

 
West Virginia

• The labor argus.

Wisconsin

• Wisconsin Labor Advocate 

Good luck finding articles about your union ancestors!

The State of Arizona has just announced that they have received funding that will enable the state to add 100,000 historical newspaper pages to their collection in Chronicling America.  





From the state:

"We are honored and extremely excited to continue the Digital Newspaper Project,” said Secretary Reagan.  “The addition of these papers to the online collections will nurture a fuller appreciation for and understanding of the diverse forces which have combined to create our unique Arizona identity.

The new grant will digitize another 100,000 pages which will make the total online newspaper collection almost 500,000 pages.

UA hopes to digitize some non-English newspapers including one of the longest-running Spanish-language Mexican American newspapers in Arizona, El Tucsonense (1915-1922)."

For the complete article, please click on UA given grant to continue digitizing newspapers

Terrific News from the State of Arizona!


For access to historic newspapers from the state that are currently available for free online, please check out​​
Arizona Online Historical Newspapers Summary.

FamilySearch continues to add or update their records collections at a fast pace for us to search.
​
For the period of September 1- 15, 2017,  the added/updated collections are:​​​​
​

• Argentina, Entre Ríos, Catholic Church Records, 1764-1983
• Denmark Census, 1880
• Denmark Census, 1890
• Denmark Census, 1901
• Denmark Census, 1906
• England, Dorset, Parish Registers, 1538-1936
• Find A Grave Index
• France, Seine-Maritime, Rouen, Indexes to Church Records, 1680-1789
• French Polynesia, Civil Registration, 1843-1999
• Luxembourg, Civil Registration, 1796-1941
• Massachusetts State Vital Records, 1841-1920
• Netherlands, Archival Indexes, Miscellaneous Records
• New Zealand, Archives New Zealand, Probate Records, 1843-1998
• Paraguay, Catholic Church Records, 1754-2015
• Peru, Cajamarca, Civil Registration, 1938-1996
• Peru, Cusco, Civil Registration, 1889-1997
• Poland, Lublin Roman Catholic Church Books, 1784-1964
• Portugal, Portalegre, Catholic Church Records, 1859-1911
• Slovenia, Ljubljana, Funeral Accounts, 1937-1970
• South Africa, Cape Province, Probate Records of the Master of the High Court, 1834-1989
• Spain, Province of Asturias, Municipal Records, 1470-1897
• Ukraine, Kyiv Orthodox Consistory Church Book Duplicates, 1734-1920
• United States, War Relocation Authority centers, final accountability rosters, 1942-1946

​
​For a complete list of all added/updated collections, go to 

https://familysearch.org/search/collection/list
​
I hope that some of these are what you have been waiting for!