This past week (December 5, 2025 to December 11, 2025), the following additions were made to The Newspaper Research Academy: ✅ Free Resources – 0 New Articles were added – 83 Total ✅ Research Guides – 2 New Guides were added – 94 Total ✅ Video Guides – 0 New Videos – 19 Total ✅ […]
Most genealogists know WorldCat only as “a library search tool,” but in practice, it is one of the most important engines for discovering hidden offline and online genealogical resources. WorldCat connects thousands of libraries, archives, and historical societies into a single database, allowing you to find books, manuscripts, maps, microfilms, and digitized materials that never […]
HathiTrust is one of the most powerful and overlooked genealogy tools on the internet. Containing millions of digitized books, journals, government documents, local histories, city directories, school reports, and genealogical society publications, it rivals — and frequently exceeds — Google Books in usefulness for family history research. What makes HathiTrust exceptional is its focus on: […]
The David Rumsey Map Collection is one of the premier free resources for historical cartography. While it is widely known among map historians, most genealogists have only scratched the surface of what this site can do. It provides tools to visualize the exact world your ancestors lived in—land boundaries, migration routes, towns that no longer […]
Introduction: Ever wondered what talents, skills, or passions your ancestors were known for? County fairs were community showcases—places where farmers, homemakers, schoolchildren, and local craftsmen competed for bragging rights that were proudly recorded in the newspaper. Prize lists captured everything from the best corn and largest pumpkin to finest needlework, fastest horses, strongest oxen, and […]
Church records go far beyond baptisms, marriages, and burials. Many congregations — especially Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Congregational, Lutheran, Reformed, and early frontier churches — kept session minutes, membership rolls, and discipline records. These documents contain revealing details about residence, relationships, conversions, migrations, community disputes, moral expectations, and the everyday lives of members. For genealogists, these […]
Over the past few decades, thanks to volunteers, librarians, and archivists, many indexes to obituary information and transcriptions of obituaries from newspapers have been provided for free online. These searchable indexes provide the location in old newspapers where the obituary can be found. Sometimes the scanned newspaper clipping is included. Remember, you can always find online […]
Over the past few decades, thanks to volunteers, librarians, and archivists, many indexes to obituary information and transcriptions of obituaries from newspapers have been provided for free online. These searchable indexes provide the location in old newspapers where the obituary can be found. Sometimes the scanned newspaper clipping is included. And remember you can always find […]
School district records are an overlooked but exceptionally rich source of genealogical information. Created to track students, teachers, funding, attendance, and local administration, these records can reveal names, ages, residences, guardians, occupations, migrations, family structures, and even social history details not found in censuses or vital records. Because school districts often kept their own ledgers […]
ArchiveGrid is a powerful but underused discovery tool containing more than 5 million archival collection descriptions from libraries, historical societies, museums, and university archives worldwide. For genealogists, ArchiveGrid is one of the best ways to locate manuscript collections, diaries, letters, photographs, organizational records, business papers, and local history materials related to families, towns, occupations, and […]