Newspapers chronicled our ancestor's lives, their friends and neighbors and their community. Researching newspapers can provide us with much more information than a simple obituary. In her article, "Researching Newspapers," Gena Philibert-Ortega brings us up to date on this valuable resource.

Labels: libraries, newspapers, online resources

Newspaper are a great resource for genealogists, and if you find digitized newspapers from your area of research, all the better. The good news is that more newspapers are being offered by a variety of providers, many are fee-based. Now, as announced in a press release Monday, GenealogyBank.com has begun to supplement its historical newspaper collection with content from Hispanic American Newspapers. In addition to millions of historical newspaper articles, modern obituaries, military reports, books and other essential genealogical documents, researchers can now access to hundreds of fully searchable Spanish-language and bilingual newspapers -- a boon to researchers of Hispanic heritage.

Labels: Hispanic, newspapers, online resources

In a press release Friday, GenealogyBank, a leading online provider of newspapers for family history research, announced the addition of over 4 million historical newspaper articles and modern obituaries to its online digital archive.

"GenealogyBank now provides access to over 221 million family history records such as obituaries, marriage and birth announcements as well as interesting and often surprising facts about our ancestors," says Genealogy Director for NewsBank, inc., Tom Kemp.

This latest addition features big city dailies and regional weeklies including: Savannah (GA) Tribune (1875-1913), Boston (MA) Journal (1880-1917), Anaconda (MT) Standard (1898-1915), North (PA) American (1845-1879) and many others. To view the entire list, see the company's New Content web page.

Labels: newspapers, online resources

In a press release yesterday, GenealogyBank, a leading online provider of newspapers for family history research, reported explosive growth in 2007 increasing its digital archive with over 40 million historical newspaper articles and modern obituaries.

GenealogyBank is quickly becoming the fastest growing newspaper archive for family history research with over 3,300 U.S. newspapers in all 50 states. The exclusive collection features newspapers from the 1600s to the present day with over 106 million historical newspaper articles and more than 26 million obituaries now available for family history research. Each article is a single digital image that can be printed and preserved for family scrapbooks. To celebrate, GenealogyBank is currently offering a 30-Day trial for only $9.95.

"We are excited about the rapid growth of our newspaper collection and the vast breadth of family history information we now have available," says Genealogy Director for NewsBank, inc., Tom Kemp. "GenealogyBank provides exclusive access to more than four centuries of important genealogical information such as obituaries, marriage and birth announcements as well as interesting and often surprising facts about our ancestors."

Labels: newspapers, online resources

GenealogyBank, a leading online provider of historical and recent newspapers for family history research, announced in a press release today the addition of 100 fully searchable historical newspapers. These newspapers will add 3 million new articles filled with significant genealogical content. GenealogyBank now has over 106 million historical newspaper articles available online for family history research. Next month, GenealogyBank will add another 100 newspapers including over 2 million new articles. Now complementing more than 210 million family history records, this latest addition will expand coverage to over 2,200 U.S. newspapers in all 50 states.

Labels: newspapers, online resources

Announced in a press release today, NewspaperARCHIVE.com, the largest newspaper database available online, has partnered with World Vital Records Inc. to provide increased access to records from newspapers ranging from 1759-1923.

NewspaperARCHIVE.com has allowed us to extract this information from their newspapers that cover the first 160-years of their collection,” said Yvette Arts, Director, Content Acquisition, World Vital Records, Inc.

Once the material from NewspaperARCHIVE.com has been launched, the data will be available for free at WorldVitalRecords.com for a ten-day period. Beyond that trail period, the collection will be available to subscribers at WorldVitalRecords.com.

Labels: newspapers, vital records

Many researchers appreciate and understand the value of old newspapers for finding obituaries, birth , marriage and death notices, but certainly there is more to be found. In her article, "The Value of the Newspaper: A Unique Window on the Past," Judy Rosella Edwards suggests many ways old newspapers can be used to provide clues and information, not the least of which might be those advertisements. In the past, researching newspapers has been a very tedious task, whether on microfilm or flipping through the physical pages in some darkened corner of a local archive. Today, as the article points out, more and more newspapers are online and many newspaper projects are working to increase the number, some with full text search capability, making it much more convenient and rewarding to browse local newspapers.

Labels: newspapers, online resources

A recent press release, "Exclusive Historical Newspaper Archive Now Online for Genealogists," announced a new source for historical newspapers. Under a partnership between SmallTownPapers, Inc. and World Vital Records, Inc. "The newspapers, part of the SmallTownPapers collection, represent unique historical content which has never before been available on the Internet and is not available from any other source. To date, the company has scanned more than two million of its more than 20 million page archive, which will be available online as the digital images are created. For more information visit www.smalltownpapers.com."

According to the site, access is free. Wow! When I went to site, I did not see a search box or search link on the home page and had to click around a bit, and found one under both the Archive and Notifiers & Scrapbooks links. Most of searches I tried, even very common names for "all states, turned up zero results. Others, however, have reported great results, so maybe I hit it on a bad day. On any day, access to historical newspapers online is a great boon to researchers, and even better when it's free.

Labels: newspapers, online resources

In her article, "Don't Forget the Local News, " Karan Pittman provides a strategy for researching old newspapers, keeping in mind how old papers were organized, what information might might be found and where. "People often underestimate the type of information that may be gleaned from newspapers in the past. The papers need to be viewed a bit differently than those of today in order to utilize them effectively."

One thing I have learned about old newspapers over the years is how much personal information might actually be reported as "news," a father who abandoned his family, for example. Important stuff if that's your family, but at the same time, you are chagrined at its being aired for public viewing. But those were the times. However rewarding, searching old newspapers today can be tedious and must often be done in the dusty recesses of the local courthouse or archives. But as more and more old newspapers are digitized and come online, the greater our opportunity to browse and even search for our family members by name. Oh my, with that prospect in mind, when will I ever get anything else done?

Labels: general research, newspapers