For the past 6 months I have been creating articles that contain links to both Free and Subscriber based online historical newspapers for the United States. Each article focuses on one single state (and the District of Columbia).

In total there are around 10,000 historical newspapers that are available online and the links are included in these articles. All publication dates for each newspaper are not online and of course not all newspapers ever published in America are either.

The Library of Congress in their Chronicling America site lists over 150,000 titles that have ever been published. To date the Chronicling America site has over 1,300 titles to search via their site. A small percentage for sure, but there are some "big name" newspapers that are included, and many of the 150,000 publications had a very short life - either one or two years or even shorter.

The Google News Archive has an even larger number of titles available online. And their links have been included in the articles.

Several states have state-wide online databases, whether sponsored by a state agency or university or not. For example, The Fulton Postcards site for New York has over 900 titles. The Portal To Texas History has nearly 600 titles and there is the University of Florida site that also has several hundred publications available online. Even Wyoming, a small state population-wise has over 300 titles available in their online newspaper database. And many states have either state-wide databases or county based ones, not to mention those housed by historical societies and local libraries in many of the states.

Below is a list of all 50 state articles (and DC).  Below this list are some links to special American newspaper collections that are not based on a single state.

I encourage you to take advantage of these links and find interesting articles and stories about your ancestors. In other words - click on the links below, proceed to the article and find the links that may be of interest to you.

Please note that any article that includes links to free or other newspaper research sites are accurate at the time of publication. Collection updates may occur (as well as dead links) in the future, both of which are out of my control. It is not the intention of the author (me) to maintain a complete or constantly updated list for all time. In other words, please don't yell at me if this is not 100% complete and/or accurate forever.


Links By State (Online Historical Summaries)

• Alabama 
  
• Alaska 
  
• Arizona 
  
• Arkansas 
  
• California 
  
• Colorado 
  
• Connecticut 
  
• Delaware 
  
• District of Columbia 
  
• Florida 
  
• Georgia 
  
• Hawaii 
  
• Idaho 
  
• Illinois 
  
• Indiana 
  
• Iowa 
  
• Kansas 
  
• Kentucky 
  
• Louisiana 
  
• Maine 
  
• Maryland 
  
• Massachusetts 
  
• Michigan 
  
• Minnesota 
  
• Mississippi 
  
• Missouri 
  
• Montana 
  
• Nebraska 
  
• Nevada 
  
• New Hampshire 
  
• New Jersey 
  
• New Mexico 
  
• New York 
  
• North Carolina 
  
• North Dakota 
  
• Ohio 
  
• Oklahoma 
  
• Oregon 
  
• Pennsylvania 
  
• Rhode Island 
  
• South Carolina 
  
• South Dakota 
  
• Tennessee 
  
• Texas 
  
• Utah 
  
• Vermont 
  
• Virginia 
  
• Washington 
  
• West Virginia 
  
• Wisconsin 
  
• Wyoming 
  

Special Collections

• African-American Online Historical Newspapers Summary 
• Farming Newspapers 
  
• Irish-American Historical Newspapers Summary 
  
• Jewish-American Historical Newspapers Summary 
  

I would suggest bookmarking the Newspapers! page on this website and visiting it regularly. Additional articles that are either informational or contain links are constantly being added. Also there are tutorials available for many of the newspaper research sites.

Good luck and happy hunting!

There are a bunch of different documents and records that the genealogist and family historian can utilize to find out more about one's ancestors, no matter whether they be related to life event dates or locations or include other information.

I have found that funeral and memorial books hold a ton of interesting information, much more so then one might initially consider. Some memorial books are quite ornate and leather bound, but many are quite simple and have less than 6 pages (at least the ones from the mid to late 20th century for my family).

Here is a sampling of one from the service of one of my ancestors, followed by a list of the types of information that can be gleaned from these pages.  

Let's go through the pages one by one and see what is available to us for research:

• Name of the deceased - Often the complete name including middle name is provided. For women, sometimes the maiden name and married name is written, but sometimes just the married surname.
• Birth Date
• Birth Location
  
• Death Date
  
• Death Location
  
• Age - often expressed in years, months, and days.
  
• Parents Names
• Grandparents Names
• Members of the Deceased's Family -  usually very helpful information, especially if there is no obituary.
• Obituary - I have one memorial for my great grandmother that has her obituary pasted in the memorial book.
• Location of Services
• Officiating Clergy
• Place of Interment
• Date of Interment
• Friends and Flowers -  this is the "holy grail" in my opinion for information in these books. If you are familiar with collateral research and especially Elizabeth Shown Mills' FANs  (Friends, Associates, and Neighbors) - you know how useful this research can be. Also you know that having these people's names listed as attendees at a funeral service mean that somehow they knew the deceased. Maybe they were a co-worker, or a neighbor, or a relative or friend of one of the deceased's children. That information is certainly useful when trying to find a census record when the deceased's last name has been butchered by the census taker or the indexer. Maybe for land plats they were their neighbors as well. Maybe by researching a co-worker you can discover their occupation. And lots of other "side-door" research and analysis of these names may bear fruit on the actual person that you are researching.

Beyond all of this information - maybe their favorite hymns were sung. Also one or two of their favorite poems were included in the book. All of this adds richness to our understanding of the life of the deceased - not just the dates and typical family tree information.

What other information have you discovered in memorial books from your family?

So how is the number FIVE used in genealogy and family history or in articles about our beloved pastime and profession?

FYI - the number FIVE symbolizes curiosity according to the numerologists. I think you would agree that the one trait that genealogists and family historians all need to have is curiosity.  

• Family Tree Magazine tells us the 5 Traits of Successful Genealogists - How many do you possess?
• Got hurdles? Robin Foster tells us Five ways to overcome your genealogy research hurdle
• I haven't watched this yet but the title is interesting - from RootsTech, Deborah Gamble shows us 5 Ways to Do Genealogy in Your Sleep. Now that would be cool.
• Got 5 minutes? FamilySearch has a bunch of 5 Minute Genealogy educational videos to educate us about genealogy. Worth a look for sure. Not much of a time investment and the rewards are well worth it.
• OK, I have to include one of my own, and this one is one of the most visited articles in my collection: The 5 Best Free Sites for Online Newspaper Research for Genealogy
• I just recently stumbled on this site and I really like it. Brenda Witchger talks about being a "story catcher" in her site with all kinds of tips/hints about writing family stories: Five Minute Family History 
• Irish roots? Gena Ortega gives us  5 Free Online Resources for Tracing Your Irish Genealogy
• Here are Five Great Productivity Tools for Genealogy from Genealogy InTime Magazine. Some really interesting tools that you should check out.
• Crista Cowan from ancestry.com give us some hints: Five Steps to Doing Genealogy Research Like A Pro
• Jewish ancestry? Avotaynu has published A Five-minute Guide to Jewish Genealogical Research.

OK - that's not FIVE but TWO times FIVE great links to review. So the 5 or so minutes you will spend reading and reviewing will get you much more value than the time spent. Hopefully you will learn more than FIVE things out of this little list. I did!

So how is the number FOUR used in genealogy and family history or in articles about our beloved pastime and profession? If you remove the "u" you get FOR, which is apropos as well.

• What is Genealogy FOR? This article discusses why people get involved in genealogy in the first place and is quite informative - Why Genealogy Is Important.
• To me there are really only FOUR things you need to do to be successful with your research - Look everywhere; Talk to old people; Write stuff down; and Use your own brain.  This may seem over-simplified, but are discussed in more detail in Genealogy is Pretty Simple - Don't Let Anybody Fool Ya.
• Want to break down your "brick wall" with crowdsourcing? Lisa Louise Cooke and Drew Smith discuss 4 Strategies and Techniques to achieve that in this informative video. Watch and learn!
• We all have FOUR grandparents, right?  And we would love it if our kids would take an interest in their family history also. Family Tree Magazine offers Family History Questions for Kids to Ask Grandparents.
• Do you use timelines in your research? You should; it is a terrific analysis tool and is indeed a nice way to display the events in an ancestor's life. Lynn Palermo offers a starter for you: Four Steps To a Family History Timeline.
• Scott Phillips tells us about the FOUR "E's" as essential to his Tips to Attract Family Members to Family History.
• Debra Newton-Carter enlightens us with her 4 Tips For Proving Your Family Tree.
• Speaking of numbers - for many months Caroline Pointer has offered us  "The XX Things You Need To Know This Morning" - every single day, including holidays. How is the number FOUR involved?  Well, her url is 4YourFamilyStory so there's the FOUR.

And just for fun, let's do another poll and determine how you feel about family history.

Where is the number THREE used when we talk about genealogy or family history?

• Well - the biggest THREE is likely the myth of The Three Brothers, the story of three immigrants who arrived in America - one went north, one went south, and the other west.  The Mocavo blog has the story.
• Fold3 is an outstanding subscription service. I had a subscription many years ago when it was Footnote and used it heavily when it provided many city directory collections. Today it focuses on military records. Their image display and handling features have always (IMO) been exceptional.
• One of the first genealogy books I purchased was George Morgan's How To Do Everything Genealogy. It is now in its' THIRD edition. Extremely useful to me. Worth looking into for your collection.
• Randy Seaver wrote a post a couple of years ago that I thought was quite interesting. One can argue about the percentages or the math but the THREE types of genealogy worlds are worth pondering. Check out the comments also.
• Yours truly wrote an article a while back about some of the rules that I use to not get too carried away with collateral lines without a plan: Quality or Quantity Genealogy? 3 Sibling Rules I Follow.
• Progeny Genealogy came out with some software a while back so that you can produce a 3D Family Tree. Kinda cool. I tried it out but got off on to something else and need to check it out again.
• Caroline Pointer published an article a few months ago that resonated with me and has some excellent advice about researching: Doing These 3 Things Will Profoundly Help Your Genealogy Research.
• Aaron Holt says that oral family history can be lost in THREE generations. Yikes!  Judy Everett Ramos writes about Mr. Holt's observations and adds her own in this article in the Examiner.com
• Gena Philibert-Ortega offers THREE Genealogy Goals for 2014: Tasks & Tips for a Great New Year. Definitely something that you should read.
• THREE Parent Embryos? Dick Eastman talks about the UK Government's consideration of this issue. Genealogy software developers - what are you gonna do with this one?
• And 33 has two THREES! So check out 33 Reasons You Should Be Searching Old Newspapers for Your Family History.

And last but least - for all of us who have a ton of genealogy papers - please take this poll:

Where does the number TWO come in when we talk about genealogy or family history?

• Everyone has two parents - a father and a mother, although in today's times, there could be a birth mother, a sperm donor, a surrogate mother, adoptive parents of all stripes, step-parents, foster parents - you name it. Certainly a challenge these days for genealogy database software.
  
• Everyone has two significant genealogy events in their lifetimes - a birth and a death, and if we are lucky as researchers they are well documented and accurate.
• There are two huge websites containing document collections to research - Ancestry and FamilySearch. With respect to the others who are a bit smaller - these are the two that everyone should take advantage of - free or not.
• There are two types of document "formats" that more "modern" researchers almost always overlook - because they are more difficult to use - microfilm and original paper. A shame if you don't search them.
• There are two types of endeavors - labels actually, that folks get all fired up about calling themselves (or others) - genealogist and family historian. Why bother getting all charged up about a label?  Who cares?
• Evidence, information, and sources come in twos - direct and indirect evidence, primary and secondary information, and original and derivative sources. It is essential to know the differences.
• Two people are better than one. Find your cousins - no matter how distant, no matter how cooperative or uncooperative they may be. You need them.
• There are two things to do when you discover a "crappy" family tree - use the information, no matter how poorly sourced - as hints; and don't get all ticked off at the person who created the crappy tree. They probably don't know any better, or don't care. Do you really think they had you in mind when they created (or copied) the crappy tree? If not, why get mad? It is not going to get any better. So adjust your attitude.
• There are two things (to me) that are the most important about family history - never stop researching; and write about the lives of your ancestors. Oh and have fun - oops that's three!

What other "twos" can you think of - and I'll bet you might have some comments about my list. Feel free to express yourself below.

You are the ONE. Yes indeed. Your ancestors are depending on you. Who is going to tell their story if you don't? I'll bet that no one in your family cares as much for those distant ancestors as you.

I wrote an article well over a year ago entitled Help Your Ancestors Live Forever - Write Your Family History. The article resonates with me because that is what drives me to be the ONE who honors my ancestors.

Now I am not naive or unappreciative - you and I are not alone. Maybe you have distant cousins (as I do) who have been a tremendous help and are equally or maybe just mildly interested. They can provide stories and photos and maybe a date or two. So with this in mind even though you are the ONE - you do need help and are lucky to get it.

If you are like me, you will "fall in love" with your ancestors, despite their human foibles or even the possible bad deeds that they committed. Maybe you will have a Moritz Braunhart in your family - a man who I know little about but whose life I would do almost anything to discover more about. Maybe a William William Williams, my great grandfather, who gave up his life as a slate miner in Wales to go to California and pan for gold. And maybe even a Samuel Braunhart, a feisty politician, who stood up for his beliefs no matter what. Today's politicians could learn a thing or two from Samuel. I mean - I love these people. And what I wouldn't do to spend just one day with my great grandmother Ernestine Bernstein, who died before I was born and who at 17 was the first of her generation to immigrate to America - by herself, with no one to greet her. How did this seemingly mild-mannered later housewife get the gumption to do that?

How are you going to honor them?

By being the ONE. That's how. Accept the challenge. Have some fun and fall in love with your ancestors.