Blog Archives

FamilySearch New and Updated Collections - November 1-30, 2018

11/30/2018

Source: familysearch.org

FamilySearch continues to add or update their records collections at a fast pace for us to search.

For the period of November 1-30, 2018, the added/updated collections are:

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!

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Chronicling America Updates - November, 2018

11/30/2018

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Source: Library of Congress

Chronicling America, the newspaper collection available for online research of United States historic newspapers, regularly updates their collection.

Here are the updated titles for November, 2018. Some are new titles and some are added to an existing title's pages in the database. There are 18 in total from 9 different states. (Please note that some newspapers may be listed multiple times because they were updated more than once by the Library of Congress during the month).

Alaska

Updated content for The Seward gateway daily edition, and the Alaska weekly post. (Seward, Alaska)

California

Delaware

Updated content for Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial. (Wilmington, Del.)

Iowa

Minnesota

Updated content for The Redwood gazette. (Redwood Falls, Minn.)

Mississippi

Nevada

New Jersey

South Dakota

Updated content for Union County courier. (Elk Point, Union County, D.T. [S.D.])

Good luck and happy hunting!

For more links for these states and others - please see the Newspaper Links page on this website.

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Newspaper Research Tip - Change the Letters

11/25/2018

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If you do newspaper research online as part of your your genealogy and family history pursuits, then you have certainly been puzzled by some of the search results (or lack thereof) that you have received.

Creation of newspaper images and application of the OCR process does not always result in what you might expect.

There is a simple explanation for this, and it all has to do with quality:

Quality of the original material - was the newspaper old and brittle when scanned? Was it yellowed? Did it have dirt on it or lots of ink spots?
Was the scan performed to create the digital image and the index from the original paper, or from a microfilm of the paper, or worse a copy of the microfilm? Every additional copy or scan degrades the resulting image and when the OCR process is applied the index suffers.
Quality of the OCR software.- some are better than others
Quality of the writing in the original newspaper. Did the author get your ancestor's name spelled correctly?
Quality of the typesetter - did the typesetter get every word from the author set up correctly?

Thus what you are searching is not a perfect digital database that represents what was originally written by the author and newspaper publisher.

What can we do about it? There are lots of things to try and this article deals with changing the letters in your search criteria. For example - if the surname you are searching for is "Wilson" and the letter "n" is often picked up as the letter "m" why not search for "Wilsom"?

I guarantee that changing your search criteria will lead to an improvement of at least 5 to 10% in search results. I heard from one reader that changing word pairs got them a 20% improvement.

So which letter pairs are often confused? Here's a few of them:

rn and m (ar n and em)
h and b
Capital D and O
i, l, 1, /, !, and I are all often interchanged
0 and O
c and e
r and n
[, ] and l (el)
nl and m (en el and em)
Capital R and B
n and ri (en and ar eye)
v and y
Capital S and 8
Capital S and 5
Capital Z and 2
Capital G and 6
Capital B and 8
Capital K and |<

My suggestion? Change your search criteria and exchange the letter string you are looking for to include these alternative letter and letter pairs and see what happens. You might be pleasantly surprised!

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Why You Should Search for Addresses in Newspapers

11/24/2018

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For anyone who reads articles on this website you know that I am addicted to searching for my ancestors in newspapers. Hence my creation of the Newspapers! Page on this site, over 28,300 free newspaper links on the Newspaper Links Page, as well as about a hundred or so articles about researching old newspapers. Not to mention a Facebook Group focused on "Genealogy and Newspapers." And despite over a decade of searching, there is always something new to learn.

Thanks to reader Diane a few years ago, she made me aware of a technique that I was embarrassed to say that I hadn't previously thought of. Maybe I have had too much success doing surname and full name searches and other techniques, I don't know.

From Diane:

" I wanted to share something that I have found helpful. I was recently trying to confirm the accuracy of an article I found in a newspaper regarding the death of two brothers in WWI. I noticed that early newspaper articles included the address of people, such as John Doe of 123 Main St. When I ran out of results to view in my name searches, I decided to put in the address as a keyword. Bingo... I received hits that didn't come back in my name search (even though the name was in the article). It isn't foolproof of course as our ancestors moved around. You have to be sure the article is referring to YOUR ancestor living at 123 Main St. and not someone else. If I don't know the address, I check census records or city directories. It's just another tool in my newspaper arsenal. And, by the way, I was able to prove that the newspaper article (about the WWI deaths) was wrong.

You first have to make sure you're searching in the right paper. More than one city has a Main Street or Broadway, etc. In my specific example, there is a 546 Bryant in San Francisco and Chicago... I needed to make sure I was getting results for the Denver area."

In DIane's example, she was using Genealogy Bank, but the same techniques can be used in most newspaper search engines by just encasing the search term (in this case the address) in quotes in the search box.

So, search for addresses as well as names and you might be surprised at what you find. I've tried this technique with a few positive results!

And thanks to Diane - this old dog (me) indeed learned new tricks!

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Thank you for visiting The Ancestor Hunt!

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25,500 Total FREE U.S. Historical Newspaper Links - Final 2018 Update

11/23/2018

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On this website, the first set of free online links to U.S. historical newspapers was published in February, 2014. Updates were added in June, 2015, December, 2015, June, 2016, February 2017, July, 2017, December, 2017, March, 2018, June, 2018, and November, 2018.

This last update of 2018 adds another 1,820 titles.

The grand total is over 25,500 FREE links to historical American newspapers!

More and more newspapers are being digitized and are being made available for all of us to research. Some are full-text searchable and others are browsable.

I will continue to follow the digitization activities across the country and hope to publish the next update in the late fall of 2018.

You need to know where these links to new and updated collections can be found, so that you can discover articles about your ancestors. Hopefully these 51 articles full of free links will assist you in your discovery and research.

To search the new (and old) and updated links, choose your state link below and see all the newspapers that are available for you to research.

(Please note - there may be more that I have not yet discovered, and if you are aware of some that I have not included, please let me know in the comments)

Happy Hunting!

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Thank you for visiting The Ancestor Hunt!

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580 Free Mid West States Online Historical Newspaper Titles Added

11/21/2018

2 Comments

580 new and updated Free Historical Newspaper Links have been added to the Mid-West States' free "newspaper link lists": These were all updated in November, 2018, and represent additions from the past 3 months. Just click on your chosen state below and the links to newspaper titles from that state will appear.

I hope these new links help you find more newspaper articles about your ancestors!

______________________________________________________

Thank you for visiting The Ancestor Hunt!

______________________________________________________

2 Comments

180 Obituary and Obituary Index Links from Canada

11/21/2018

4 Comments

One of the main goals for genealogists in searching historic newspapers is to find obituaries. Obituaries are a gold mine of information. They provide death dates and locations, funeral and cemetery information and sometimes mote importantly - information about the relatives of the deceased's family and extended family. This family name information is often not found anywhere else.

During November, 2018 I have been updating the links to online obituary and obituary index collections that are available to search for free. There are a total of 180 online database links that I have found for Canada. Of these, 53 have been added since the previous update.

So not only can we search old newspapers for these gems, we sometimes can get transcriptions and clippings and also get directed to the location of the obituaries from obituary indexes.

Here are alternative means to newspaper searching to find obituary information, listed by the link to each province's list of free links. Please be aware that if you find a desired obituary in an index, that the holder of the actual obituary (e.g., library or genealogical society) may charge a small fee to send you a copy of the obituary itself.

(Updated November, 2018; added links are in Bold)

General Canada

Alberta

If you wish to search this province's historic newspapers for obituaries, click on Alberta Online Historical Newspapers Summary

British Columbia

If you wish to search this province's historic newspapers for obituaries, click on British Columbia Online Historical Newspapers Summary

Manitoba

Canadian Obituaries Forum - MANITOBA
Canadian Obits - Manitoba (scroll to top)
Crandall Obituaries (transcriptions)
Brandon Obituaries
Brandon Sun Obituaries 2008-
Manitoba Obits
University of Manitoba Retirees Obituaries (transcriptions)
Winnipeg Free Press Passages

If you wish to search this province's historic newspapers for obituaries, click on Manitoba Online Historical Newspapers Summary

New Brunswick

If you wish to search this province's historic newspapers for obituaries, click on New Brunswick Online Historical Newspapers Summary

Newfoundland and Labrador

If you wish to search this province's historic newspapers for obituaries, click on Newfoundland and Labrador Online Historical Newspapers Summary

Nova Scotia

If you wish to search this province's historic newspapers for obituaries, click on Nova Scotia Online Historical Newspapers Summary

Ontario

If you wish to search this province's historic newspapers for obituaries, click on Ontario Online Historical Newspapers Summary

Prince Edward Island

Canadian Obituaries Forum - PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND
Canadian Obits - Prince Edward Island (scroll to top)

Island Register Obituary Book
Island Register Stray Book
Belfast, P.E.I. Scrapbook, 1901-1912
P.E.I. Memorial Scrapbook
Prince Edward Island Deaths and Obituaries (more current transcriptions)

If you wish to search this province's historic newspapers for obituaries, click on Prince Edward Island Online Historical Newspapers Summary

Quebec

If you wish to search this province's historic newspapers for obituaries, click on Quebec Online Historical Newspapers Summary

Saskatchewan

If you wish to search this province's historic newspapers for obituaries, click on Saskatchewan Online Historical Newspapers Summary

Good Luck and Happy Hunting!

______________________________________________________

Thank you for visiting The Ancestor Hunt!

______________________________________________________

4 Comments

265 Free Western States Online Historical Newspaper Titles Added

11/20/2018

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265 new and updated Free Historical Newspaper Links have been added to the Western States' free "newspaper link lists": These were all updated in November, 2018, and represent additions from the past 3 months. Just click on your chosen state below and the links to newspaper titles from that state will appear.

I hope these new links help you find more newspaper articles about your ancestors!

______________________________________________________

Thank you for visiting The Ancestor Hunt!

______________________________________________________

0 Comments

620 Free Southern States Online Historical Newspaper Titles Added

11/20/2018

0 Comments

About 620 new and updated Free Historical Newspaper Links have been added to the Southern States' free "newspaper link lists": These were all updated in November, 2018, and represent additions from the past 3 months. Just click on your chosen state below and the links to newspaper titles from that state will appear.

I hope these new links help you find more newspaper articles about your ancestors!

______________________________________________________

Thank you for visiting The Ancestor Hunt!

______________________________________________________

0 Comments

330 Free Mid-Atlantic States Online Historical Newspaper Titles Added

11/15/2018

0 Comments

330 new and updated Free Historical Newspaper Links have been added to the Mid-Atlantic States' free "newspaper link lists": These were all updated in November, 2018, and represent additions from the past 3 months. Just click on your chosen state below and the links to newspaper titles from that state will appear.

I hope these new links help you find more newspaper articles about your ancestors!

______________________________________________________

Thank you for visiting The Ancestor Hunt!

______________________________________________________

0 Comments

<<Previous

FamilySearch New and Updated Collections - November 1-30, 2018

Chronicling America Updates - November, 2018

Newspaper Research Tip - Change the Letters

Why You Should Search for Addresses in Newspapers

25,500 Total FREE U.S. Historical Newspaper Links - Final 2018 Update

580 Free Mid West States Online Historical Newspaper Titles Added

180 Obituary and Obituary Index Links from Canada

265 Free Western States Online Historical Newspaper Titles Added

620 Free Southern States Online Historical Newspaper Titles Added

330 Free Mid-Atlantic States Online Historical Newspaper Titles Added

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