Chronicling America, the free historical U.S. newspaper research site, frequently updates existing newspaper collections and adds newspapers as their state projects digitize new newspapers and provide them to the LIbrary of Congress.

For August and September, 2014, there are 79 such newspapers that have been updated in the collection.

In alphabetical order they are presented below:

• Alamogordo news-advertiser. (Alamogordo, Otero County, N.M.) 
• Albuquerque morning journal. (Albuquerque, N.M.)
  
• Baltimore commercial journal, and Lyford's price-current. (Baltimore, Md)
  
• Baltimore daily commercial. (Baltimore, Md.)
  
• Bedford inquirer. (Bedford, Pa.)
  
• Bradford reporter. (Towanda, Pa.)
  
• Centre Democrat. (Bellefonte, Pa.)
  
• Centre Hall reporter. (Centre Hall, Pa.)
  
• Cherokee scout. (Murphy, N.C.)
  
• Chicago eagle. (Chicago, Ill.)
  
• Civilian & telegraph. (Cumberland, Md.)
  
• Clarksville daily chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.)
  
• Clarksville evening chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn)
  
• Clarksville evening tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.)
  
• Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.)
  
• Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.)
  
• Delaware gazette. (Delaware, Ohio)
  
• Der deutsche Correspondent. (Baltimore, Md.)
  
• Der deutsche Correspondent. (Baltimore, Md.)
  
• East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, Umatilla Co., Or.)
  
• Evening star. (Washington, D.C.)
  
• Evening times-Republican. (Marshalltown, Iowa)
  
• Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.)
  
• Iron County register. (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.)
  
• Knoxville daily chronicle. (Knoxville, Tenn.)
  
• Macon beacon. (Macon, Miss.)
  
• Maryland free press. (Hagerstown [Md.])
  
• Millheim Journal. (Millheim, Pa.)
  
• North Branch democrat. (Tunkhannock, Pa.)
  
• Norwich bulletin. (Norwich, Conn.)
  
• Orleans County monitor. (Barton, Vt.)
  
• Orleans independent standard. (Irasburg, Vt.)
  
• Seattle daily post-intelligencer. (Seattle, W.T. [Wash.)
  
• The Alamogordo news. (Alamogordo, N.M.)
  
• The Albuquerque morning journal. (New Albuquerque, N.M.)
  
• The Bedford gazette. (Bedford, Pa.)
  
• The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.)
  
• The Cadiz Democratic sentinel. (Cadiz, Ohio)
  
• The Cadiz sentinel. (Cadiz, Ohio)
  
• The Cadiz sentinel. (Cadiz, Ohio)
  
• The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.)
  
• The Centre reporter. (Centre Hall, Pa.)
  
• The Columbia herald. (Columbia, Tenn.)
  
• The Columbia herald. (Columbia, Tenn.)
  
• The Daily Ardmoreite. (Ardmore, Okla.)
  
• The daily exchange. (Baltimore, Md.)
  
• The daily intelligencer. (Seattle, Wash. Territory [i.e. Wash.])
  
• The Democratic pioneer. (Upper Sandusky, Ohio)
  
• The Democratic sentinel and Harrison County farmer. (Cadiz, Ohio)
  
• The Democratic sentinel. (Cadiz, Ohio)
  
• The evening Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.)
  
• The Farmer's union. (Memphis, Mo.)
  
• The Farmington times and herald. (Farmington, St. Francois Co., Mo.)
  
• The Farmington times. (Farmington, Mo.)
  
• The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.)
  
• The Herald and mail. (Columbia, Tenn.)
  
• The morning journal. (Albuquerque, N.M.)
  
• The Ocala evening star. (Ocala, Fla.)
  
• The people's journal. (Coudersport, Pa.)
  
• The pilot and transcript. (Baltimore, Md.)
  
• The pilot. (Baltimore [Md.])
  
• The Pioneer express. (Pembina, Dakota [N.D.])
  
• The Potter journal and news item. (Coudersport, Pa.)
  
• The Potter journal. (Coudersport, Pa.)
  
• The Pulaski citizen. (Pulaski, Tenn.)
  
• The Seattle post-intelligencer. (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.])
  
• The Seattle star. (Seattle, Wash.)
  
• The Somerset press. (Somerset, Ohio)
  
• The United opinion. (Bradford, Vt.)
  
• The western Democrat. (Charlotte, N.C.)
  
• The Woodville Republican, and Wilkinson advertiser. (Woodville, Miss.)
  
• The Woodville Republican. (Woodville, Miss.)
  
• The Wyandot pioneer. (Upper Sandusky, Ohio)
  
• Wilmington journal. (Wilmington, N.C.)
  
• Woodville Republican. (Woodville, Miss.)
  
• Woodville Republican. (Woodville, Miss.)
  
• World's cresset. (JAH-ville [Colony], Fowler, Mo.)
  
• Wyandot County Republican. (Upper Sandusky, Ohio)
  
• Wyoming democrat. (Tunkhannock, Wyoming Co., Pa.)
  

If any of these newspapers are ones for which you are awaiting updates, I would encourage you to try new searches at the Chronicling America site.

Good luck!

As an aficionado of newspaper research for genealogy and family history, I have done a lot of searching. Most recently it has been of the online variety.

One can be quite successful in spite of the limitations of poor quality source material, scanning deficiencies and OCR limitations.


The best results are usually because of good planning, rather than simple surname searching and hoping. Here are a few techniques that you can employ to find that elusive ancestor article that you may have been trying to find:

1. Looking for a marriage license announcement? These were aplenty in older newspapers, and generally listed the bride and groom's full name and address.  Don't just enter their name - if you have access to city directories to find their address (or know it already), why not include the surname and the city name, or the surname and the street name, etc. Unless your ancestor is named John Smith who lived on Main Street, using this technique might turn up something.
2. I have written before about deliberately misspelling surnames because of how the index does not represent the original text because of quality, scanning and OCR limitations.  See more of this in "Newspaper Research Tip - Change The Letters"
3. Looking for an obituary? Try adding the word "beloved" or "dear" to your search criteria in addition to the name. Those words are in many if not most obituaries.  Or the word "brother" or "sister" or "wife" or Husband."  You get the idea.
4. How about combining the surname and occupation of your target ancestor, or their surname and name of the lodge, church, or club they belonged to?  If the site offers a proximity search capability, you could try using "25 words apart". That way if your ancestor is in an article talking about their club, etc. you might pick up something. The same works for schools attended as well.
5. I have written about this previously and the idea actually came from a reader and is a great one - try leaving out the names and just search for an address of where they lived (or worked). Check out Why You Should Search for Addresses in Newspapers and read Diane's terrific example of success using this technique.
6. 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.
7. Try abbreviations for names, such as "Wm" for William, or "Jno" for John, or "Jos" for Joseph, and "Robt" for Robert, just to name a few. Here is a terrific list from Genealogy In Time.
8. Looking for a birth announcement?  Try adding the words "Born to" or "Born to the wife of" to the surname of the father in your search box.
9. I have said this before and I will say it again - if the site has an "Advanced Search" capability - use it always. You will have many more options at your disposal.

Try some of these and I suspect you will achieve a higher degree of success.  What different clever ideas have you used as search criteria?

Shame on yours truly for not being thorough! Over the past year, I have done a lot of research to discover online sites for historic newspaper research for genealogy and family history purposes. The end result of all that research is a set of about 60 articles that list free and subscription links by U.S. state and Canadian province. These can be found in the Newspapers! page here. There are about 10,000 newspapers and inks available.

I was aware of a site entitled Small Town Papers at the time I was researching and writing these articles, and in fact I looked at several of the over 250 newspapers available on that site. Apparently the ones I looked at only had papers from 1995 on - not what I would call "historic." Thus these newspapers were not included in my articles and link lists.

But thanks to a loyal reader, my mistake has been rectified. Indeed there are historic newspapers available for you to browse and search, some as early as 1846.

I would encourage you to make Small Town Papers part of your newspaper research repertoire. I also encourage you strongly to read their Terms of Use as they are quite strict when compared to other free newspapers sites. Copying and downloading of pages found have specific rules and limitations. Always read about copyright and use "rules" on any newspaper site!

Lastly, sorry for my omission.  I hope that use of this site helps you find some interesting articles about your ancestors.

Since most researchers these days use online newspaper resources, this will be our focus. Most people when they start, just find a website and type in a surname and then hope they find something. Unfortunately this is how many beginner online researchers also use ancestry.com,  FamilySearch and other genealogy database record sites.

Yes you may get lucky and get some results, but are they ALL the results, or the BEST results? Likely the answer is a resounding NO.

There are a lot of articles about newspaper research for genealogy, but most tell you what sites to search and they don't tell you what to do once you get there!

So here are just a few tips for beginners (and it is always a good review for more advanced folks as well.)  After reading this, I would highly recommend perusing the Newspapers! page on this website for a bunch of newspaper research-related articles as well as a ton of links to websites that contain newspaper research databases.

• Large nation-wide databases, such as Chronicling America and world-wide, such as Elephind, are terrific resources. You might decide to just go to these sites and enter a simple surname search, and then depending on the rarity of the surname may get few results or too many to go through. I always advise that you use the ADVANCED SEARCH capability of these sites. This will allow you to hone in on a persons full name or the specific locations where they might have lived. Some of the Advanced Search features allow you to search for ANY of the words, ALL of the words, an EXACT PHRASE, or even a proximity search, which searches for Word A within say 5 words of Word B in the text. You also can narrow the results to a specific date range.

• Look for LOCATION BASED DATABASES. Select a site where your target ancestor resided. Then do your search. There are hundreds of county, state and province based collections that may provide with you with newspapers that are not in the big collections. If you don't know which newspapers are available for your desired location, you can always use this Library of Congress database. it also shows where offline newspapers might be located in archives, libraries and other institutions. Or again - check the Newspapers! page on this site for links in The U.S. and Canada.

• Vary your search criteria.  For example, DELIBERATELY MISSPELL the target ancestors name as you may have seen it misspelled in the past. Both OCR and scanning errors may alter the name in the index from how it was originally published.  Also, the journalist who wrote the article may have misspelled the name in the first place!

• Vary your search criteria, Part 2. DON'T JUST SEARCH FOR NAMES. Try searching for a known address, or an occupation, or a club or lodge that your ancestor may have belonged to.

• Remember that many words in older newspapers were HYPHENATED, so use parts of names or words in your search criteria.

If you are a visual learner, you can also check out these Tutorials on how to use many of  these online sites.

These are just a few tips to get you started and obtain the most and best results. Don't type and hope!

Genealogists spend a lot of time trying to find birth, marriage, and death dates and locations to "prove" who should be in their family tree and establish who rightfully are their ancestors. This of course is an important pursuit.

But there are multiple dimensions to family history research.  For me - leaning the stories of my ancestors through personal recollection, letters or newspaper articles is really fun. And even more fun is having in your hands (or on a computer screen) the image from a photograph of one of my ancestors for the first time.  

We acquire these photos from our living relatives or from recently passed relatives' photo albums. But are there other resources?  Yes there are.  One doesn't have to be famous necessarily to show up in the thousands of archives all over the country.

It is important to a complete research that one attempts to understand the environment that surrounds our ancestors' lives if one wants to truly appreciate what they went through. So not only are portraits and candid photos important, but photos of their surroundings can be very useful to your genealogy research.

Below is a list of all 50 state articles that I have recently written, which include hundreds of links and millions of online available images.  Below this list are some links to special American collections that are not based on a single state.

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


State Articles

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

Special Collections

• Civil Rights Movement Photos
• Civil War in the American South
• Documenting the American South
• Military History Photos
• Civil War Photos
• U.S. Army Center of Military History
• Women's Suffrage Movement Photos

General  and Multi-State Sites

• American Museum of Natural History
• Digital Public Library of America
• Internet Archive Book Images
• Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalog
  
• National Archives - Digital Photograph Collections
• Old Pictures
• Smithsonian Images

And check back to the Photos! page on this site for more links and pertinent articles about photo research.