| Old newspapers can provide a treasure trove of information for genealogists: birth announcements, weddings, baptisms, visits from out of town family members, illnesses, obituaries, memorials, notices of families relocating; and, also, notices of probate and estate settlement, tax lists, unclaimed mail and much more. Thousands of articles from historical newspapers have been transcribed and are available on a variety of different kinds of websites. Some of these are subscription, but others, such as the ones below, are free. In addition to online resources, here are some other suggestions you might find helpful: - Historical and genealogical societies sometimes have newspapers on microfilm or can help direct you to other sources. - Check county courthouses, many have copies of local newspaper editions. One of the courthouses I visited had every edition of the local paper back to the early 1800's! - State departments of archives and history almost always have some newspapers on microfilm. (See link to U.S. Newspaper Program below.) - Be sure to contact local newspaper offices, they may have a morgue of all of their published papers. - Libraries are another possible source, especially large university libraries. Following are links I've found helpful in my search for old news. - THE OLDEN TIMES - OLD NEWSPAPER COLLECTIONS PROJECT - ROOTSWEB archives of the "Old Newspapers" mailing lists, Go to Rootsweb's homepage; click Mailing List index; choose the location and look for the "Old Newspaper" list. - USGenWeb Archives include records of all kinds, including information obtained from newspapers. USGenWeb hosts websites for both states and counties; from their main page, choose the state, then county, and check the county site for possible newspaper article transcriptions. - Obituaries Help - Resource for obituaries and geneanlogy. - U.S. NEWSPAPER PROGRAM, lists links to websites of participants involved in this project. - SEARCH ENGINES - Do a web search for the area in which you are interested; many library, county and personal websites include newspaper transcriptions. I found a few sites by doing a search for "old news + Texas." Here are some good search engines: - GOOGLE'S GENEALOGY SEARCH ENGINE - IXQUICK - SOOPLE - ALL THE WEB - OPEN DIRECTORY PROJECT - IRELAND OLD NEWS - GEN-UKI newspapers from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. - 18TH CENTURY AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS, Library of Congress - HISTORICAL TEXT ARCHIVE contains old articles and, also, e-books. - NEWSPAPER INDEXES, ARCHIVES - HOME TOWN NEWS - Links to all known current daily/weekly U.S. newspapers - can lead you to the name of a newspaper in an area distant from you. - NEWSPAPERS.COM - Worldwide database for newspapers. - HISTORY BUFF - FOOTNOTE - A repository of online documents and newspapers. - NATIONAL DIGITAL NEWSPAPER PROGRAM is an ongoing attempt to transcribe and microfilm historical newspapers. In the next several years, 30 million newspaper pages will be online and fully searchable. |
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| by Nancy Brister |
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