Blog - The Ancestor Hunt

NY State Historical Newspapers Adds/Updates 12 Titles - December, 2018

12/31/2018

If you follow this website at all, you know that I from time to time update the free online historical newspapers that are available for you to search. I originally posted the New York Online Historical Newspapers Summary in February, 2014, and have added many updates, the latest in November, 2018. The largest collection for the state is Old Fulton New York Postcards which has significant updates once or twice a year. I usually write an article alerting you to those updates as they are published.

The NY State Historic Newspapers site is not as well known as Old Fulton Postcards, but is adding and updating titles at a very rapid rate and has just hit 8.2 million pages available.

All of the counties in the state are represented. It is brought to you by the Northern New York Library Network in partnership with the Empire State Library Network. You should take advantage of this resource and check back often.

Here are the latest added and updated newspapers included in their December, 2018 update. You can search them at NY State Historic Newspapers.

New Titles

The eagle-bulletin. - Fayetteville, N.Y., 1933-1958
Eagle-bulletin. - [Fayetteville, N.Y.], 1979-current
The Eagle-bulletin, DeWitt news-times. - Fayetteville, N.Y., 1961-1979
The Eagle-bulletin and DeWitt times. - Fayetteville, N.Y., 1959-1961
Fayetteville bulletin. - Fayetteville, N.Y., 1895-1933
Fayetteville luminary, and Reformed Methodist intelligencer. - Fayetteville, Onondaga Co., N.Y., 1839-1841
The Fayetteville recorder. - Fayetteville, N.Y., 1892-1???
Onondaga independent. - Fayetteville, N.Y., 1899-19??
The weekly recorder. - Fayetteville, N.Y., 1866-1892

Updated Titles

The journal-register. - Medina, N.Y., 1970-????
The Medina daily journal and Medina register. - Medina, N.Y., 1932-1970
Westfield Republican. - Westfield, N.Y., 1855-current

For a complete list of all this collection's titles as well as all New York titles available online, go to New York Online Historical Newspapers Summary.

Good luck with your research!

For other states and additional Newspaper research resources, check out the Newspapers page.

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Thank you for visiting The Ancestor Hunt!

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1,795 Free Online Historical Photo Archives from the U.S.

12/20/2018

An old proverb states that "the eyes are the windows into the soul." A genealogy corollary is that "a photo is a window into the lives of your ancestors."

Old photos are important to a complete research, whether they are portraits of your ancestors or historical photos for the period when they lived. And it is important that one attempts to understand the environment that surrounds our ancestors' lives if one wants to truly appreciate what they went through.

So where can they be found? Obviously the best resource is our own photo albums and those that our relatives possess. But what about other resources? Many archives, historical societies, libraries and genealogical societies have collections of old photos. And in the past few years there has been a massive movement towards making these historical photo collections available online. Some have search capabilities where you can actually put in a surname or a location, name of a building or historical event and find what is available.

During November and December, 2018 I have been adding and updating the links to online photo collections that are available to search for free. There are a total of 1,795 online photo collection links that I have found for the U.S., with 870 of those links added since the previous update. I will update these lists in approximately six months.

Here is the list of links to these free online collections for each state:

For articles about historic photos and photo research, please visit the Photos page.

Good Luck and Happy Hunting!

______________________________________________________

Thank you for visiting The Ancestor Hunt!

______________________________________________________

390 Western States Online Photo Archives Updated

12/19/2018

An old proverb states that "the eyes are the windows into the soul." A genealogy corollary is that "a photo is a window into the lives of your ancestors."

I love old photos, whether they are portraits of my ancestors or historical photos for the period when they lived. And 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 where can they be found? Obviously the best resource is our own photo albums and those that our relatives possess. But what about other resources? Many archives, historical societies, libraries and genealogical societies have collections of old photos. And in the past few years there has been a massive movement towards making these historical photo collections available online. Some have search capabilities where you can actually put in a surname or a location, name of a building or historical event and find what is available.

Please be aware that there may be very strict rules regarding downloading or other use of the images that you may find. Copyright and other legal protections may be in force. Make sure that you read the limitations of use for any image that you find in these collections and wish to download and/or copy. It is your responsibility to adhere to the rules for all of these collections.

Please note that links to these sites may change in the future. The author (me) will not be constantly checking and updating these links, so if you find a broken link, please use your favorite search engine to locate the new link.

For historic photos from other states as well as articles about photo research, please visit the Photos page.

Good Luck and Happy Hunting!

______________________________________________________

Thank you for visiting The Ancestor Hunt!

______________________________________________________

8 Things You Can Find Out About Your Ancestors in the Local Newspaper's Society Pages

12/19/2018

Even though you might not think of your ancestors as "society page" types, the newspaper society pages didn't just cover the "muckety mucks."

Parties, engagements, trips to resorts in the summer - all were covered in the Society pages. Who was a guest at whose home, and who traveled to see whom. And many more interesting stories.

How about who won the latest bridge tournament, or who won the blue ribbon at the county fair?

You would be amazed at all the things that were covered and what these articles can do for filling in your family tree and learning about your ancestors life stories. Let's take a look at some of them:

Did your ancestors get married? Then maybe, just maybe there was an article in the paper. Maybe a photo of the bride and groom, or just the bride? And there were the names of the best man and the maid of honor and all the attendants, and the names of the brides parents, as well as the grooms. Lots of names and maybe a mention of a brother or sister that you didn't know about!

Did your ancestors get engaged? Well, an article in the paper might include a party in their honor at the home of the bride's parents. Now you know their address, or even the parents names if you didn't know them before. Maybe the name of the groom's parents that you didn't know before either.

How about games? I have an ancestor that was written up in the paper so much about his bridge playing results that it appeared that he didn't have a job!

In the late 1800's and early 1900's, it was commonplace in some locations to list all the resorts that folks traveled to - in order to beat the heat since there was no air conditioning. And my ancestors weren't rich but some of them got out of town for a bit in the summertime. And their names were in the listing of all the people who attended the cooler resort areas. And who they traveled with - a previously unknown ancestor's relative perhaps?

Did your ancestors attend parties? Sure they did. And there are tons of articles about many different kinds of parties and luncheons; and celebrations of all types of special occasions, including 25th and 50th wedding anniversaries. A clue to their wedding date?

Did your ancestors visit relatives and friends? Yep - they did. And the papers wrote about it - in the Society section. And guess what - sometimes the relationships between the guest and the host and hostess were mentioned. Another way to determine who was related to who. And very often, out-of-town visitors were mentioned (and maybe noting the town that they came from)!

What about church (or synagogue)? Did they attend? Churches were huge gathering places for your ancestors and there were all kinds of community activities and "do good" committees that were associated with the church. And your ancestors were part of them. You can look it up - in the Society page.

How about the county or state fair? Did your ancestor enter their prize winning blueberry pie? Or how about one of my ancestors submissions - what he called his "tropical sauce"? Wonder what was in that?

Yes - there is a massive amount of information to be reaped from the Society page. Sometimes they were called the Women's page as well - but they all include a ton of information about our ancestors' exploits - all which help us fill in the life stories of our ancestors - and maybe even give us a date or a name that we are looking for.

Yes - you can look it up.......... in the Society page. They are in old newspapers everywhere!

What interesting tidbit have you found about your ancestors in the Society page? Please let us know in the comments below.

______________________________________________________

Thank you for visiting The Ancestor Hunt!

______________________________________________________

490 MidWest States Online Photo Archives Updated

12/19/2018

An old proverb states that "the eyes are the windows into the soul." A genealogy corollary is that "a photo is a window into the lives of your ancestors."

I love old photos, whether they are portraits of my ancestors or historical photos for the period when they lived. And 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 where can they be found? Obviously the best resource is our own photo albums and those that our relatives possess. But what about other resources? Many archives, historical societies, libraries and genealogical societies have collections of old photos. And in the past few years there has been a massive movement towards making these historical photo collections available online. Some have search capabilities where you can actually put in a surname or a location, name of a building or historical event and find what is available.

Please be aware that there may be very strict rules regarding downloading or other use of the images that you may find. Copyright and other legal protections may be in force. Make sure that you read the limitations of use for any image that you find in these collections and wish to download and/or copy. It is your responsibility to adhere to the rules for all of these collections.

Please note that links to these sites may change in the future. The author (me) will not be constantly checking and updating these links, so if you find a broken link, please use your favorite search engine to locate the new link.

For historic photos from other states as well as articles about photo research, please visit the Photos page.

Good Luck and Happy Hunting!

______________________________________________________

Thank you for visiting The Ancestor Hunt!

______________________________________________________

32 Reasons Why Searching for Obituaries is Like Finding Gold

12/19/2018

OK - you won't get rich when you find an obituary, but your genealogy research will benefit, and your family history research will get richer.

We have a tendency as researchers to under appreciate the value of the documents or articles that we already have acquired, and spend our time looking for new "stuff." There are so many "facts" and clues that can be retrieved from these artifacts, if we just pay attention. And they are just sitting there staring at us.

This article discusses 32 different pieces of information you can find in an obituary. Start by poring over the ones that you already have. I'll bet you can find some info in them that you didn't know that you had!

So without further adieu - here are an abundance of reasons why we should spend tons of time finding obituaries and discerning the clues buried (no pun intended) in them.

First let's look at one example of a very simple obituary from my own family:

What information is included in this 1889 obituary?

Death date - this is the obvious one. But based on the publication date of the newspaper, sometimes the exact date is listed or the day of the week so you can calculate the date of death.
Death location - this is not always entered in an obit, but in this case, it was.
Names of siblings - this is in a word - HUGE! Up until I got the copy of this obituary, the sister, Mrs. S. Lust was not identified anywhere as a sister (even though other documents surmised that she was his sister), but now I knew that she was. And a new sister - Mrs. I Schudmack was identified in this obituary - more research - goody!
Maiden name - We can assume (but need more evidence) that the maiden names of Mrs. Lust and Mrs. Schudmack was "Marks" since they are referenced as sisters of the deceased.
Nativity - maybe this does not identify the exact place of birth - but at least where he immigrated from.
Age - this is usually a part of an obit - even though it should never be construed as an exact age, even in years.
Religion - because the funeral was being held at the B'nai B'rith Hall, one could assume (until further evidence is acquired) that the deceased was Jewish.
Death information of others - did you notice that it says, "...brother of the "late" Louis Marks?" If we did not know that Louis was dead or when he died, we now know that he died before March 31, 1889 (which is Emil's death date based on this article.)

Let's look at another example obituary - this one is pert of a transcription of a newspaper obituary that was on Find a Grave:

What additional information is included in this 2002 obituary?

Cause of death
Birth location - be careful with these; although this one states the actual location, "native of " should not be construed as the actual birth location.
Birth date
Residences - this one states her most recent city as well as a few others. Helpful for finding someone in a prior census or city directory. Although this obit does not have it - on older obits you may find the language: "Philadelphia and Baltimore papers, please copy." This provides clues as to the deceased's prior residential cities.
Names and residences of children and grandchildren - this is especially helpful when census records are not available. Where else are you going to find children's names?
Marriage "history" hints - Notice the reference to "step- daughters? That may imply that her husband had been married before. Helps to clarify whose children were whose.
Names of children and grandchildren spouses - this is a fairly recent phenomenon in obituaries, where the name of the spouse of the children/grandchildren is entered. This can help for further cousin finding.
Name of spouse
Occupation
Membership in lodges, associations and clubs
Hobbies
Burial information - in this case she was cremated. Notice the Neptune Society reference which implies that her ashes may have been "buried" at sea.

Let's look at another one; this one from 1975:

Interment Information - name of cemetery. Please note that the name of the cemetery in the obit may be different from where the deceased is actually buried. The burial location could have been changed at the last minute. Or the remains may have been moved to another cemetery at a later date - to be buried with a loved one, or if the cemetery was closed down and all remains transferred.
Mortuary - this is useful because mortuary records often have much more information than what is written in the obit. So a researcher can contact the mortuary for additional records.
Military service - notice that the deceased served in World War 1. Also notice the flag on the obit that denotes a veteran. Not in this obit, but I have seen enlistment dates and locations mentioned in obituaries as well.
Church membership - terrific information if one wants to contact the church for additional information

And here's another one. This obit falls into the biography category, where the author pretty thoroughly discusses many life experiences of this deceased relative:

What additional information does this one from 2009 provide?

Parents and grandparents names
Schools attended
College degrees and professional certifications
Government service - a specialized piece of occupational information that may provide clues for additional research
Sports - what the deceased participated in and who they rooted for
Picture of the deceased

OK - let's try one more!

Unions - did they belong to a union? If so, maybe union records can become an additional set of records to search for additional info.
Awards - whether occupational or otherwise, adds depth to the deceased's' life story.

I am sure that one can find other obituaries that have additional information, but these are the more common ones.

You can search for obituaries in newspapers of course. A list of over 20,000 links to free online collections can be found at Newspaper Links

There also is an abundance of Obituary Indexes that have been created. Links to over 1,000 of these indexes (some including actual newspaper images), can be found on the Obituaries page.

What interesting (and helpful) things have you found in an obituary?

______________________________________________________

Thank you for visiting The Ancestor Hunt!

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North Carolina Has Selected 6 Microfilmed Newspaper Titles for Digitization in 2019

12/19/2018

Source: DigitalNC

Digital NC, the North Carolina website that not only has a great digitized online newspaper collection for the state, but also other types of digital collections, has just announced their selections for digitization in 2019. The complete article and other details can be read at Microfilmed Newspaper Nominations Selected for Digitization, 2019.

Here are the selected titles and years of publication for the "winners!"

I am sure that newspaper researchers from the communities that these titles serve and researchers of history and genealogists looking for articles about their ancestors are thrilled to see these selections.

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Thank you for visiting The Ancestor Hunt!

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Free e-Book to Help You Become a Master Newspaper Researcher

12/14/2018

To become a successful historic newspaper researcher, you need to make a small investment in time to learn the "tricks of the trade."

Here is a free 20 page downloadable eBook that will help you!

e-Book - Tips for Researching Online Historical Newspapers

This e-Book (in PDF format), is chock full of tips and tricks that if followed, will help you understand why online newspaper research may not provide the results that you expect, but gives you a ton of advice to follow in order for you to optimize your results.

Click below to download the pdf file

Tips for Researching Online Historical Newspapers - 2018.pdf
File Size:	394 kb
File Type:	pdf

Good Luck and Happy Hunting!

______________________________________________________

Thank you for visiting The Ancestor Hunt!

______________________________________________________

570 Southern States Online Photo Archives Updated

12/13/2018

An old proverb states that "the eyes are the windows into the soul." A genealogy corollary is that "a photo is a window into the lives of your ancestors."

I love old photos, whether they are portraits of my ancestors or historical photos for the period when they lived. And 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 where can they be found? Obviously the best resource is our own photo albums and those that our relatives possess. But what about other resources? Many archives, historical societies, libraries and genealogical societies have collections of old photos. And in the past few years there has been a massive movement towards making these historical photo collections available online. Some have search capabilities where you can actually put in a surname or a location, name of a building or historical event and find what is available.

Please be aware that there may be very strict rules regarding downloading or other use of the images that you may find. Copyright and other legal protections may be in force. Make sure that you read the limitations of use for any image that you find in these collections and wish to download and/or copy. It is your responsibility to adhere to the rules for all of these collections.

Please note that links to these sites may change in the future. The author (me) will not be constantly checking and updating these links, so if you find a broken link, please use your favorite search engine to locate the new link.

For historic photos from other states as well as articles about photo research, please visit the Photos page.

Good luck and Happy Hunting!

______________________________________________________

Thank you for visiting The Ancestor Hunt!

______________________________________________________

College and University Historical Student Newspaper Links in Canada

12/12/2018

As you know, if you have visited this site previously, I have been presenting historical newspaper links to Free online collections in Canada over the past few years. To see all these collections, click on the Newspaper Links tab at the top of this web page.

Since the college/university experience is a sizable part of one's life, it makes sense when we are searching for ancestor information, that we include these student publications in our research. Below is a list of links, presented by province and institution that are free for you to search.

Colleges, universities, specialty schools and a few high school newspapers are included in this list. Hopefully researching these collections will uncover some interesting facts and stories about your ancestors while they were a student.

Please note - some of these have only recent archives because they likely have not had the funding to digitize their older issues of the student newspapers. But the majority do have digitized archives of their older issues, and of course, like all digitized collections there may be date gaps. I frankly was pleasantly surprised that there were as many robust digital archives as there are. This is a rapidly expanding area of newspaper digitization, so the list will change frequently. And as always, I am sure that I missed some. Please let me know links of ones that I have missed in the Comments section.

For your information, these Student Collections will also be included in the province Historical Newspaper Link Summaries that I regularly update.

If there are duplicate listings, that is because the same newspaper title is available in more than one online collection.

Alberta

Athabasca University - Athabasca - The Voice Magazine
Mount Royal University - Calgary - Reflector
Northern Alberta Institute of Technology - Edmonton - The Nugget
Southern Alberta Institute of Technology - Calgary - The Weal
University of Alberta - Edmonton - The Gateway
University of Alberta, Augustana - Camrose - Augustana Medium
University of Calgary - Calgary - The Gauntlet
University of Lethbridge - Lethbridge - Meliorist

British Columbia

British Columbia Institute of Technology - Burnaby - LINK Magazine
Camosun College - Vicoria - Nexus
Capilano University - North Vancouver - Capilano Courier
College of New Caledonia - Prince George - Free Press
College of New Caledonia - Prince George - Confluence
Douglas College - New Westminster - Douglas Pinion
Douglas College - New Westminster - The Other Press
Kwantlen Polytechnic University - Surrey - Chronicle
Kwantlen Polytechnic University - Surrey - Runner
Langara College - Vancouver - The Voice
Simon Fraser University - Burnaby - The Peak
Thompson Rivers University - Kamloops - The Omega
Trinity Western University - Langley - Salmon River Digest
Trinity Western University - Langley - The Echo
Trinity Western University - Langley - TWU Today
Trinity Western University - Langley - Mars’ Hill
University of British Columbia - Vancouver - Ubyssey
University of British Columbia, Okanagan - Kelowna - The Phoenix
University of the Fraser Valley - Abbotsford - The Cascade
University of Northern British Columbia - Prince George - Over the Edge
University of Victoria - Victoria - The Martlet
Vancouver Island University - Vancouver - The Navigator

Manitoba

Brandon University - Brandon - The Quill
Collège Universitaire de Saint-Boniface - Winnipeg - Le Réveil
Red River College - Winnipeg - The Projector
University of Manitoba - Winnipeg - The Manitoban
University of Winnipeg - Winnipeg - The Uniter

New Brunswick

Mount Allison University - Sackville - The Argosy
Saint John High School - Saint John - SJHS Hound
St. Thomas University - Fredericton - The Aquinian
University of New Brunswick - Fredericton - Brunswickan

Newfoundland and Labrador

Memorial University - St. Johns - The Muse

Nova Scotia

Acadia University - Wolfville - The Athenaeum
Cape Breton University - Sydney - Caper Times
Dalhousie University - Halifax - The Gazette
Mount Saint Vincent University - Halifax - Picaro/Sentinel
St. Francis Xavier University - Antagonish - Xaverian Weekly
St. Francis Xavier University - Antagonish - Xaverian Weekly
Saint Mary's University - Halifax - The Journal
University of King's College - Halifax - The Watch Magazine

Ontario

Algonquin College - Ottawa - Algonquin Times
Brock University - St. Catherines - Brock News
Carleton University - Ottawa - The Carletonian
Carleton University - Ottawa - The Charlatan
Carleton University - Ottawa - The Leveller
Centennial College - Toronto - The Centennial College Courier
Conestoga College - Kitchener - The Spoke
Fanshawe College - London - The Interrobang
George Brown College - Toronto - The Dialog
Humber College - Toronto - Coven
Lakehead University - Thunder Bay - Argus
Laurentian University - Sudbury - Lambda
Laurentian University - Sudbury - L’Orignal déchaîné
Laurentian University - Sudbury - Réaction
Loyalist College - Belleville - Photojournalism Pioneer
McMaster University - Hamilton - Silhouette
Niagara College - Niagara-on-the-Lake - Niagara News
Queen's University - Kingston - The Queen's Journal
Ryerson University - Toronto - Eye Opener
Ryerson University - Toronto - Ryersonian
St. Clair College - Windsor - The Saint News
Sheridan College - Oakville - The Sheridan Sun
Trent University - Peterborough - Arthur
University of Guelph - Guelph - The Ontarion
University of Ottawa - Ottawa - Fulcrum
University of Ottawa - Ottawa - La Rotonde
University of St. Michael's College - Toronto - The Mike
University of Toronto - Toronto - The Varsity
University of Toronto - Toronto - Toike Oike
University of Waterloo - Waterloo - Imprint
University of Western Ontario - London - The Gazette 2009-2012
University of Western Ontario - London - The Gazette 2012-
University of Windsor - Windsor - The Lance
Victoria University - Toronto - The Strand
Wilfrid Laurier University - Waterloo - The Cord
Wilfrid Laurier University - Brantford - Sputnik

Prince Edward Island

Holland College - Charlottetown - The Surveyor
Holland College - Charlottetown - The News
University of Prince Edward Island - Charlottetown - Prince of Wales College - Observer
University of Prince Edward Island - Charlottetown - Prince of Wales College - College Times
University of Prince Edward Island - Charlottetown - St. Dunstans University - Red & White
University of Prince Edward Island - Charlottetown - UPEI Magazine
University of Prince Edward Island - Charlottetown - The Cadre

Quebec

Bishop's University - Sherbrooke - The Campus
Concordia University - Montreal - The Concordian
Concordia University - Montreal - The Link
Dawson College - Montreal - The Plant
École polytechnique de Montréal - Montreal - Le Polyscope
John Abbott College - Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue - Bandersnatch
McGill University - Montreal - McGill Daily
McGill University - Montreal - McGill (University) Gazette
McGill University - Montreal - McGill Fortnightly
McGill University - Montreal - McGill Outlook
McGill University - Montreal - McGill Martlet
Université de Montréal - Montreal - Quartier Libre
Université de Sherbrooke - Sherbrooke - Le Collectif
Université du Québec à Chicoutimi - Saguenay - Le Griffonnier
Université du Québec à Montréal - Montreal - UQAM
Université Laval - Quebec City - L'Universitaire 1916-1917
Université Laval - Quebec City - Impact Campus

Saskatchewan

University of Regina - Regina - Carillon
University of Saskatchewan - Saskatoon - The Sheaf

Good Luck and Happy Hunting!

______________________________________________________

Thank you for visiting The Ancestor Hunt!

______________________________________________________

303 Mid Atlantic States Online Photo Archives Updated

12/11/2018

An old proverb states that "the eyes are the windows into the soul." A genealogy corollary is that "a photo is a window into the lives of your ancestors."

I love old photos, whether they are portraits of my ancestors or historical photos for the period when they lived. And 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 where can they be found? Obviously the best resource is our own photo albums and those that our relatives possess. But what about other resources? Many archives, historical societies, libraries and genealogical societies have collections of old photos. And in the past few years there has been a massive movement towards making these historical photo collections available online. Some have search capabilities where you can actually put in a surname or a location, name of a building or historical event and find what is available.

Please be aware that there may be very strict rules regarding downloading or other use of the images that you may find. Copyright and other legal protections may be in force. Make sure that you read the limitations of use for any image that you find in these collections and wish to download and/or copy. It is your responsibility to adhere to the rules for all of these collections.

Please note that links to these sites may change in the future. The author (me) will not be constantly checking and updating these links, so if you find a broken link, please use your favorite search engine to locate the new link.

For historic photos from other states as well as articles about photo research, please visit the Photos page.

Good luck and Happy Hunting!

______________________________________________________

Thank you for visiting The Ancestor Hunt!

______________________________________________________

185 New England States Online Photo Archives Updated

12/10/2018

An old proverb states that "the eyes are the windows into the soul." A genealogy corollary is that "a photo is a window into the lives of your ancestors."

I love old photos, whether they are portraits of my ancestors or historical photos for the period when they lived. And 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 where can they be found? Obviously the best resource is our own photo albums and those that our relatives possess. But what about other resources? Many archives, historical societies, libraries and genealogical societies have collections of old photos. And in the past few years there has been a massive movement towards making these historical photo collections available online. Some have search capabilities where you can actually put in a surname or a location, name of a building or historical event and find what is available.

Please be aware that there may be very strict rules regarding downloading or other use of the images that you may find. Copyright and other legal protections may be in force. Make sure that you read the limitations of use for any image that you find in these collections and wish to download and/or copy. It is your responsibility to adhere to the rules for all of these collections.

Please note that links to these sites may change in the future. The author (me) will not be constantly checking and updating these links, so if you find a broken link, please use your favorite search engine to locate the new link.

For historic photos from other states as well as articles about photo research, please visit the Photos page.

Good luck and Happy Hunting!

______________________________________________________

Thank you for visiting The Ancestor Hunt!

______________________________________________________

3 Different and Cool Ways to Search Chronicling America's Historic Newspapers

12/8/2018

Source: Library of Congress

If you research online United States newspapers, it is likely that you have searched the Chronicling America site. It is pretty easy to learn and has some very good features that are rarely found in other online newspaper research sites.

But this article is about 3 different "front ends" if you will, that enable searching the Chronicling America site very differently. I will describe them below, and they are not presented in any preferred order. All are very different.

Elephind

The first, Elephind, is a product of DL Consulting, creators of the Veridian software. Elephind allows what is called a "Federated Search", which allows one to search multiple online historic newspaper sites all at once. Currently you can search 24 different sites. Chronicling America is one of the collections, surpassed in size only by Trove from Australia. The collections are from all over the world, but 90% of the collections are from America.
The key for this discussion though is that Chronicling America is one of the collections. The search capability is good, and doesn't have all of the bells and whistles that other sites do - but it is fast and accurate (and you can combine a CA search with state based collections.)

It is cool that one can not only search Chronicling America but multiple sites from the U.S., all at the same time.

Old News USA

The second, Old News USA from Revgenea Software, is a mobile app, currently available on Android, and the iOS version later this year. From the Revgenea website: "Designed for both genealogists and history enthusiasts, OldNews USA makes getting started with historical newspaper research easier than ever. With OldNews USA, you can quickly discover interesting stories and articles in historical US newspapers, using the Library of Congress Chronicling America collection of over 12 million newspaper pages from 1789 to 1922."

FYI, Revgenea won the RootsTech 2017 Innovator Showdown earlier this year in Salt Lake City. Personally, I have used this app quite a bit, and it has a wide variety of features.

It is cool that one can search Chronicling America from a mobile device. Makes for being productive while waiting 15 minutes for an appointment.

US News Map

This search option provides a visual way to display search results from Chronicling America, and has a timeline "feel." From the eHistory website - "In partnership with Georgia Tech Research Institute, eHistory launched USNewsMap.com in January 2016. The website allows users to search Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers and visualize the results across space and time." The search features are pretty basic, but do the job. It is in the display where this software shines.

It is cool because of the display features of the search results. Seeing visually where in the U.S. the Chronicling America search results are located is terrific. (Hat tip to Lisa Louise Cook for making me aware of this. Check out her SIte for a video of this software).

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Why Use Proximity Searches When Searching Historical Newspapers Online

12/7/2018

When researching historical newspapers online, we often have some basic capabilities used by most of the underlying search engines.

For example, one basic search that all of the search engines have is to enter one or multiple words in your search box. For multiple words, the engine generally assumes that without entering search operators such as "AND" or "OR" that you are implying an "AND". So if you are searching for someone named John Sousa, you can leave out the "AND" or put it in and the results will be all the pages that have the word "John" and the word "Sousa".

Furthering our example, if you are looking for someone with the same name, you could encase the two words in quotes. So searching for "John Sousa" would return you all pages that have those two words next to each other only. But they must be next to each other for a page to be returned as a result.

Again with our example, in the "AND" case, we would get all pages that also have the name John Philip Sousa. But in the case where we are using quotes, any occurrence of John Philip Sousa would not be a successful result.

Now let's discuss the basics of proximity searching. Simply, proximity searching lets you search for two words within a specified number of words from one another. Let's say your target person is named "John middle name Sousa, and you don't know the middle name. If, like John Philip Sousa he used his middle name regularly, how would you find all the results? If you use quotes like "John Sousa" you won't find him, and if you don't use quotes you may get a result of pages that have both John AND Sousa somewhere on a page.

The ideal way is to use a Proximity Search, and you would search for John and Sousa WITHIN one word of each other. This would return results where a middle name or a middle initial is used.

Obituaries are good candidates for proximity searches, since fathers, brothers, uncles, married female relatives, etc. may be named in the obit. So a proximity search say within 5 or 10 words from one another might give you some interesting results.

Another example would be an event such as "Montgomery Bus Boycott", where the word "bus" may not be used in all articles.

Now, the good news is that several online newspaper collections provide proximity searching and many do not. Chronicling America does but you are restricted to within 5, 10, 50, or 100. And those who use the Chronicling America search engine, such as South Carolina have the same feature.

Texas and Oklahoma's search engines allow you to perform proximity searching within a selection of 1, 2, 3, 4... up to 25.

Utah's allows 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 10. The New York NYS Historical Newspapers site only allows 5 or 10.

Sadly, most of the online collections' search engines do not provide proximity searching capabilities.

So if available, try using proximity searches. It might delver results that you might miss otherwise.

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Advantage Preservation Adds 2 Million Historical Newspaper Pages - November, 2018

12/7/2018

In February, 2017, I published for the first time a list of the catalog of online historical newspapers from over 400 different collections put together by the Advantage Preservation Company, developed in conjunction with the libraries, historical societies and museums across the U.S. who preserve the historical newspapers for their communities. Every month, I have been publishing the added collections produced by Advantage Preservation. To see the entire updated list, click on 55 Million Historic U.S. Newspaper Pages Now Available from Advantage Preservation

Here are the new County and Library collections that were added In November, 2018, after the previous Advantage Preservation update, followed by the collections that have had additional newspapers added to their collections in the last month.

New County and Library Collections (County, Collection name/link, Number of newspaper titles included in the collection)

Illinois

Schuyler - Rushville Illinois (6)
Woodford - Illinois Prairie District Public Library (42)

Iowa

Black Hawk - La Porte City (3)
Cerro Gordo - Clear Lake (9)
Crawford - Charter Oak (4)
Dallas - Perry Iowa (13)
Hancock - Hancock County (2)
Marion - Marion County (2)
Tama - Tama County (2)
Winneshiek - Luther College (18)
Woodbury - Catholic Globe (2)

Kentucky

Metcalfe - Metcalfe Library (1)
Pulaski - Pulaski (4)

Maine

Somerset - Pittsfield Public Library (5)

Manitoba

Westman Region - Brandon Sun (1)

Massachusetts

Berkshire - Lee Public Library (2)
Essex - Marblehead Public Library (3)
Norfolk - Morrill Memorial Library (2)

Nebraska

Cass - Cass County Nebraska (116)
Fillmore - Fillmore County Public Library (42)
Nuckolls - Nelson Public Library (5)
Platte - Humphrey (2)

North Dakota

Morton - Flasher (3)
North Dakota - North Dakota Archives (4)
Traill - Hillsboro (1)

Oregon

Wallowa - Enterprise City (19)

Tennessee

Hamilton - Chattanooga Newspapers (37)

Updated Collections (listed by state and county of the existing online collections that had new pages added in the last month that are available to search for free):

Iowa

Maine

Cumberland - Bridgton Public Library

Massachusetts

Essex - Newburyport Public Library

Nebraska

Boone - Albion Public Library
Furnas - Butler Memorial Library

New York

Orange - Albert Wisner Public Library
Wayne - Clyde-Savannah Public Library

If you wish to see a complete list of links to historical newspapers that are searchable for free from companies like Advantage Preservation and many others, check out Newspaper Links.

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