Historic Newspapers Blog

An Ancestry.com Quick Tip by Pat Jahn

Gleaning Information from Newspapers

Excerpt:
After spending several years reading and indexing over forty years worth of old newspapers (for genealogical purposes), I offer the following comments and suggestions.

If the papers were microfilmed many years ago, I found they were occasionally filmed out of order; therefore, scanning the film for a few months in each direction is advisable. (Also note that on occasion the incorrect dates are listed on newspapers—typographical error.)

Second, in newspapers of early years look in the “gossip” portion of the paper. There were very few obituaries and/or death notices. This information was more commonly reported as a news tidbit. These were often no more than a single sentence or two listed along with many such items. Remember to check the issues several weeks preceding and following the date you have interest. Check earlier issues because illness, and accidents, etc. were regularly included. Check later issues because this information may not have reached the paper in a timely fashion.

Third, check ten, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, forty, and fifty years after the event. Many newspapers ran columns that reprinted items from earlier issues. This is particularly meaningful if some issues are missing from the microfilm or are unreadable.

Fourth, try to learn which township, suburb, or section of the community where your ancestor lived. Often the papers had columns devoted to those areas and the news as reported by a local resident. However, as I learned many of these areas overlap and information can be found in more than the one specific correspondent’s report. So, learn the name of the area and which areas are immediately adjacent so that you can scan those columns as well.

Fifth, look at the late May/early June issues of newspapers for a listing of the graduation classes, which often included photos. Another good time to scan newspapers is right before and after holiday seasons. Often it is reported which relatives came for visits and when they left.

Read the Full Article

An interesting article by Michael John Neill.

Broken Axles and Tea with the Neighbors: Gleaning Old Newspapers

Article Excerpt:
I still get my hometown weekly newspaper. It’s been years since I’ve lived “at home,” but I always make a point to keep up on the latest news, who got married, who died, who had a child, who got divorced, who bought or sold land, who was fined in circuit court, who had an anniversary, etc.

Newspapers are a tremendous genealogical resource. Not only do they contain obituaries, but they also contain birth announcements, wedding announcements, anniversary notices, probate notices, court information, and a wide variety of other material.

There were newspapers that printed news of the local court, including what cases were coming to trial. Individuals searching for scandalous court cases might also want to search the newspapers at the time when the case came to trial in addition to the time when the scandal actually took place. Testimony and other information from the trial might appear in the paper.

Legal notices for probate and estate settlements will also be found, but it is possible in some areas to find a summary of the will published in the newspaper. Property transactions can also be located, sometimes with the amount of the sale. Names of those serving on juries can also be printed. It really is up to the editor to determine the content and some were much more concerned with local matters than others.

A potential gold mine can be had in the social columns or the correspondents’ columns. These columns were frequently letters of “news” submitted by readers of the paper. Many of the submissions were social events, but a wide variety of items made their way into the columns. A paper in the county seat may have columns for many of the towns in the county, even if these towns have their own newspapers.

Reading these columns can be an eye-opener. When searching the Carthage, Illinois newspapers, I make certain to read the gossip from Warsaw, Elvaston, Breckenridge, West Point, Stillwell, and all those small towns where I had relatives. Some town names that are used may be no longer in use today and users unfamiliar with the local area should consult a map to determine approximately where the columns are coming from.

It does take a tremendous amount of time to read the newspapers, especially when one is searching the correspondents’ columns for an event that took place at an unknown time. One can also glean significant information by simply reading the column. If nothing else, a more local, more detailed, and more scandalized view of history can be obtained.

I tried using newspapers to solve one of my most difficult research problems: my great-grandmother Ida Sargent, born 1874 in Iowa, Missouri, or Illinois. There was little to go one and Ida’s mother vanishes sometime circa 1882. I found several items in the Warsaw (Illinois) Bulletin regarding Ida and five family visits that took place in 1891 and 1892. Below is one of them:

Warsaw [Illinois] Bulletin, 29 May 1891, “Breckenridge — Ira Sargent and family, of Lima, spent Sunday with his daughter, Ida Sargent, of this vicinity.”

Ida moved from Breckenridge to Warsaw in the spring of 1892. No mention of the move is made in the paper, but I was pleasantly surprised to find so many references to the family.

Sometimes the items are interesting and may appear non-genealogical. However, the genealogist can usually glean something from an entry. While the following entry does not mention exactly who Grandma Dirks is, the researcher familiar with the family will know the reference is to Anna’s mother, who was obviously alive in October of 1921.

Golden [Illinois] New Era, 13 Oct 1921, “Mrs. Anna Goldenstein and son Jurgen, daughter Altje and Neora Janssen visited with Grandma Dirks Sunday afternoon. On the way home they broke an axle on their car near Coatsburg and were compelled to make the rest of the trip on the nine thirty train.”

An entry a few years later indicates Jurgen has left home and is working approximately fifty miles away.

Golden [Illinois] New Era, 16 Aug 1923, “Mrs. Anna Goldenstein visited Tuesday with her son, Jurgen, who is working in Keokuk.”

Residences of former residents of the area can also be obtained.

Read the Full Article

An interesting article by Dick Eastman on Ancestry.com

ProQuest Historical Newspapers Online Project

Article Excerpt:
Another huge online database of newspaper archives has been announced. It won’t be available for some time yet, but the announcement certainly sounds good. This week Bell & Howell announced the launch of its ProQuest Historical Newspapers™ Project:

Bell & Howell’s Information and Learning unit announced a new millennium product launch today from the Midwinter meeting of the American Library Association that will bring complete runs of newspapers to the Web via the ProQuest online information service.

The ProQuest Historical Newspapers™ project will initiate the digitization of newspapers dating from the 19th century to the present—in most cases, full runs of newspapers. The historical archives will digitally reproduce every issue from cover to cover—not just the news stories, and editorials, but also the photos, graphics, and advertisements. Searchers will be able to enter terms (keywords, dates, author’s name, article type, etc.) to search the full file. A results list will supply bibliographic information, including date, page number, and writer’s name (where given). To see the text, the user simply chooses the article, and the article image is displayed. Users will also be able to display the full page image of any page in any issue. The databases will be completely browseable by issue, allowing searchers to browse through entire issues as they would a printed paper.

A New Dimension to Online Research and Learning
“With the launch of ProQuest Historical Newspapers, we are adding a whole new dimension to online research and learning,” said Joe Reynolds, president and CEO of Bell & Howell Information and Learning. “Over the last 10 years, the information industry has seen the tremendous growth of online distribution of news. In fact, we’ve been a part of that growth, by providing current issues of newspapers and periodicals online. But this product provides a new, previously unattainable facet to online research: historical news content. In addition to providing deep backfiles, we will be able to use this newly digitized content in curriculum products at all levels of education.

“ProQuest Historical Newspapers is the first initiative to not only reach back into the past to digitize historical newspaper information, but also to provide that information in full page image format, so users can view the information in context as originally published,” continued Reynolds. “It is part of our ongoing effort to provide complete, comprehensive access to information.

“For the first time, researchers will be able to access news stories from previous centuries with simple search terms. In addition, they’ll be able to look at the entire issue, which means they’ll find history in its context—complete with long-forgotten news items pertinent to the day, advertisements of popular products and services of the time, and with editorial comments reflecting the era’s sentiments.”

A Full Spectrum of Coverage
The ProQuest Historical Newspapers project will encompass newspapers with deep historical value for researchers in various fields, including newspapers that may now be extant. The project will be ongoing and will cover hundreds of newspapers in the coming years, including national, regional, and local newspapers, beginning with U.S. papers, and will eventually include newspapers from around the world. Bell & Howell will announce newspapers as their digitization begins, with the first announcement being concurrent with this announcement.

In addition, Bell & Howell Information and Learning will continue to provide both microform and ASCII full-text electronic versions of newspapers for which it already distributes these versions. (In many cases, Bell & Howell will be able to provide full runs of titles both in microform and electronically to serve both the archive and access needs of libraries.)

Read full article

An article by Roseann Reinemuth Hogan, Ph.D.

Using Hometown Newspapers to Gather Little-Known Facts

Excerpt:
In many areas of the country, some of the most rich and important sources of information about family history appear in locally published newspapers. County, city, and even small community newspapers published by church or civic organizations can be important sources to learn not only about your family, but also about local, community, and regional history. Although they may not be the source you would normally turn to, newspapers can provide insights into the world our ancestors inhabited, including personal information not available through any other means. News articles in small publications give glimpses into the everyday life of our ancestors.

In the nineteenth century, many small towns had one or even two newspapers. Personal biographical information, as well as important events, were reported in these local papers. Births and deaths, which occurred prior to statewide reporting, were often announced in local papers.

However, while newspapers are a rich source of information, there are also pitfalls that can hinder your research if you are not careful. Information found in newspapers should be evaluated and verified by primary documents whenever possible. Newspaper biases, problems with timely reporting, and inaccurate data that can often be misleading are only a few issues a researcher must be aware of when researching newspapers. Here are a few ideas to remember that will help you evaluate and locate accurate information in newspapers.

Biases. Early newspapers were often established for political purposes. As a result, not all stories were covered, or the stories may have been altered slightly to meet the newspaper’s political agenda. The researcher’s response to this should be to look for newspapers in surrounding areas or a larger city in the vicinity in order to get a more accurate coverage.

Timing of Events. Since many of the local papers were printed weekly, stories were not necessarily published immediately. Some stories may not have even appeared because it was old news by the time the paper was printed. As a result of delays in reporting, it is wise to search for obituaries or local announcements several weeks after the date. Also, searches in the weeks preceding the death may yield stories that hint at the anticipated event. For example, reports of illnesses and visits by distant relatives may mean that the last visits prior to an anticipated death had begun.

Inaccuracies. Events hastily reported may be in error. Newspaper stories then and now contain inaccurate statements. For example, obituaries may not report all survivors or may incorrectly report their names and relationships. Dates may also be wrong.

Regional Searches. Many times, newspapers would cover stories about surrounding areas also. Therefore, if an article can not be located, or if there are no newspapers for the dates of interest, consult papers in nearby cities or counties.

Regional searches are often necessary to locate elderly or widowed parents who left their hometowns in their declining years to live with a grown son or daughter. Hometown papers may carry announcements of the deaths of their long-time residents even if they had moved away prior to their death.

Newspaper Content
Features and Ads. Local newspapers contain a wealth of information important to genealogists. Of course, newspapers will report vital events such as births, marriages, and deaths, but in addition to these, feature stories, editorials, political events, notices of sales, and want-ads may provide insight into the life and times of your family. Announcements regarding settlements of estate, or notices to make claims on estates prior to settlement can also appear in the newspapers. If the family farm had to be sold, it may have been advertised in the real estate section of the paper.

Obituaries.Many obituaries can be quite detailed. Some give the names of parents and siblings and dates of migration, along with major events in the person’s life. One genealogical problem was solved by an obituary in a small town paper in the 1890s. It listed the maiden name, parents’ names, and siblings of a recently deceased ninety-year-old woman. Since her parents’ marriage certificate could not be located, the obituary was the only way the name of the woman’s father could have been discovered. A will subsequently found in an adjoining county confirmed the parentage.

All information in a death announcement should be carefully evaluated for genealogical information. Pallbearers listed in obituaries are often sons, brothers, and sons-in-law. The funeral home and burial place should be noted. Armed with this information, additional information can be obtained.

Read the Full Article