Last post for Black History Month

By chance this morning I came across a wonderful Minnesota Black Newspaper Index. It was compiled in 2002 by Brendan Henehan. He wrote: "This is an informal index of newspapers that I have compiled over the past several years. It is not meant to be an exhaustive listing of topics. I have looked at each of the newspapers listed in the Newspaper Key of this index, quickly scanning them for topics of interest to me. You’ll notice particular passions of mine: baseball, media and the law. Yet I have tried to be general in my interests as well. Each of the papers listed in the key are available at the Minnesota Historical Society except for the New York Age, which is available at the University of Minnesota’s Wilson Library."

He indexed 15 newspaper titles and the index is on the Minnesota Historical Society's website. The index includes a key to the newspaper titles that are abbreviated in the index.

I found several items I want to check based on my own research and lecture interests:

Adams, J. Q.: Founder of St. Paul Afro-American League, AP 11-9-1889 p1 c2
Advertisement:  Wanted: 10 good colored families for N. Dakota TCG 1-17-1920 p1 c3
WPA: Transient camp in Mendota has 108 Black men MSP 3-6-1936 p1 c6
WP:A Twin Cities survey of Blacks TCH 4-4-1936 p1 c5
Bundrant, J. W:. Forms Black World War I unit TCS 4-14-1917 p2 c2
Carey, Talmadge: To wed Theresa Ray 8-8 at St. Peter Claver MSP 8-10-1945 p7 c3
Carey, Talmadge: Photo of wedding to Theresa Ray MSP 8-24-1945 p3 c3
Carter, Charles: Former slave dies, came to Mpls in 1883 TCL 8-24-1940 p2 c5
Goins, Homer Former St. Paul officer dies at 42 TCH 8-27-1932 p4 c1
Goins, Homer Obituary of former St. Paul police officer TCH 9-3-1932 p1 c2

And that's just the beginning of the articles that interest me!

North Carolina newspapers online

The state archives in North Carolina has has completed the posting of 23,483 digital images of newspapers online at its website. They are keyword searchable! These cover a time frame from 1751 into the 1890s.

The North Carolina Newspaper Digitization Project website states: "In 2009, the North Carolina State Archives completed a project to digitize newspapers from its collection that were, up until that time, only available on microfilm. These materials include papers dating from 1751-1890s from cities like Edenton (1787-1801), Fayetteville (1798-1795), Hillsboro (1786), New Bern (1751-1804), Salisbury (1799-1898), and Wilmington (1765-1816) - a total of 23,483 digital images that are keyword searchable."

The project page includes a list of the newspapers and years that have been made available online. The searches can be made by just a keyword, or limit it by year and/or newspaper title. An advanced search capability allows for additional parameters.

"British Newspapers, 1800-1900 " available for home access

I love being able to sit in my home in the U.S. and read newspapers from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. I have been doing this for the last couple of hours and as usually happens when I read old newspapers, I start reading everything and forget the exact thing I was searching. But I usually find things that I wish had my ancestors listed in them. The item at the right is from the Aberdeen Journal [Scotland].

A relatively new website makes these newspapers such as this one available for research right in your own home. Quoting directly from the company making this possible: “Before “British Newspapers, 1800-1900” was created, a genealogist would have to visit various libraries and scroll through hundreds of screens of newspapers on microfilm to look for this information. Now, researchers can keyword search millions of pages of text with one key stroke from the comfort of their homes, drastically reducing the time and energy needed to research family genealogy. With this new resource the task of researching family genealogy, once arduous and seemingly impossible, is now relatively easy and very exciting."

"Gale, part of Cengage Learning, along with The British Library and the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), have made nineteenth-century British newspapers available on the internet. The database, known as “British Newspapers, 1800-1900" and available at http://newspapers.bl.uk/blcs/, gives users access to over two million newspaper pages from 49 different national and regional newspapers from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Chosen by leading experts and academics, the newspapers represent a cross-section of nineteenth-century society and contain illustrated materials on a variety of topics, including business, sports, politics and entertainment.”

“To make this collection available to users, Gale turned The British Library's collection of nineteenth-century newspapers into a high-resolution digital format with searchable images. The database presents online access to a key set of primary sources for the study of nineteenth-century history. For the 49 newspapers selected, every front page, editorial, birth and death notice, advertisement and classified ad that appeared within their pages is easily accessible from what is a virtual chronicle of history for this period. Users of the database can search every word on every page.”

Among the features I used on the website:

• Short history of the individual newspaper
• Short history of British newspapers in general which has sources cited!
• Searched all newspapers for an uncommon surname
• Searched a specific newspaper for a surname within a range of years
• Searched for names in a specific newspaper
• Searched for a surname and a city in the U.S.
• Searched for a surname and a city in Scotland
• Checked my search history
• Printed an article (also could have downloaded, saved, or emailed it)
• Browsed the alphabetical list of publications
• Checked the map showing what cities’ newspapers are included
  

While I didn't find anything on direct ancestors I found some articles that relate to possible collateral lines. I also gained a feeling of the social history of the years I searched. The articles loaded quickly.

Among the types of articles I saw:

• Lists of births, deaths and marriages from these countries
• Some U.S. b, d, and m in these newspapers
• Accident notices
• Bankruptcies
• People sentenced to jail and to gaol
• Business partnerships dissolved
• Politics
• Religion
  

Over two million pages are included and are all fully text searchable with keywords in context visible in the results list. Access cost:

• A 24-hour pass for £6.99 that provides you access to 100 articles over that period. [ca. $11.52 US]
• A 7-day pass for £9.99 that provides you access to 200 articles over that period. [ca. $16.46 US]

A larger library, especially a university library, near you might have this database. Before visiting the library check to see who may log on to do searches.

Check out the website at http://newspapers.bl.uk/blcs/

Google expands its "News Archive Search"

Have you used Google's newspaper archive search? It is one of my favorite search capabilities for obituaries and other newspaper items. Many of the links that pop up are to other websites that require a fee. Many of these do have subscriptions for home users. Your public library may have subscriptions to these sites.

Google has also been digitizing newspapers and has recently quadrupled number of articles included in "News Archive Search."

Try some searches here.

See the full notice on Google's own blog.

New Orleans Public Library's Louisiana Biography and Obituary Index now fully online

This press release appeared online this morning. Don’t forget that many immigrants to this country arrived at the port of New Orleans. Many then ventured up the Mississippi River to their new homes. U.S. residents may have spent some time in New Orleans as they journeyed on the water from the East Coast to the West Coast and vice versa. This is one index I have dreamed of using because much of it was a WPA (Work Projects Administration) indexing project in the late 1930 as part of FDR’s New Deal program. Since that time, librarians have made extensive additions to the index. The library’s website includes information on ordering copies of articles the index references.

“The New Orleans Public Library's Louisiana Division is pleased to announce that its "Louisiana Biography and Obituary Index" is now available online.

The original Index, which references obituaries appearing in New Orleans newspapers, 1805-1972, and selected biographical references in a variety of published sources, is a massive card file of some 650,000 cards, most of which include multiple references. The online version, a searchable database of the card index, is the result of a nearly 10-year-long collaboration between NOPL and The Historic New Orleans Collection, which funded the project and produced the database and the web interface. While names from about the first third of the alphabet have been searchable online for a number of years, the database is now complete. Names can be searched from Aachler, Fred E. to Zyzik, Pauline Wyplor. We are finally done.

To search the index (and find out more about the project), please link to http://neworleanspubliclibrary.org/obits/obits.htm. (If you have the original version of the index linked or bookmarked, please note that the link has changed, since the completed index has moved to a new server.)

Irene Wainwright
Archivist, Louisiana Division/City Archives
New Orleans Public Library
219 Loyola Ave.
New Orleans, LA 70112

Family sleuth knows how to connect the dots to the past

The online edition of the Jordan Independent newspaper in Minnesota has a May 2, 2009 article about a woman whose name is closely associated with the history of the City of Shakopee and Scott County, Minnesota. Betty Dols has done a lot for history and genealogy in Scott County.

I first met Betty Dols many years ago at a Minnesota Genealogical Society meeting. We saw each other over the years and she always had news on some interesting Scott County history or whatever project she was than working on. Genealogists do not often get publicly recognized for what they do in the field of genealogy. In Betty's case many descendents of Scott County ancestors have a lot they should thank her for. You can read the nice article at http://www.jordannews.com/news/activities/family-sleuth-knows-how-connect-dots-past-105

I blogged about one of Betty's projects back in June, 2008.

Index to Hudson, Wisconsin Newspapers

Earlier, I did a blog post about the death of Willis H. Miller of Hudson, Wisconsin. Kathy Deiss of the St. Croix Valley Genealogical Society sent details on the CD of his wonderful newspaper index. The cost is $29.95 plus $3.00 postage. Send your check to SCVGS, P.O. Box 396, River Falls, WI 54022. She said "it's a great resource. Three of our members spent untold hours, one drawer at a time, entering every detail. It truly is a treasure."

Ancestry doubles size of newspaper collection

In a press release today, Ancestry.com announced that it has doubled the size of its newspaper collection:

"Ancestry.com has doubled the size of its newspaper collection - adding a billion names and 20 million images. Culled from a cross section of American newspapers, from large and small towns alike, this collection has newspapers beginning in the early 1800s and some extending into the 2000s. (Available years vary by newspaper.) As an example, the collection includes newspaper titles, such as:

* The Anniston Star (Anniston, AL)
* Modesto Bee and Herald News (Modesto, CA)
* Raleigh Register (Raleigh, NC)
* Odessa American (Odessa, TX)
* Xenia Daily Gazette (Xenia, OH)
* Panama City Herald (Panama City, FL)
* Chicago Daily News (Chicago, IL)
* Delta Democrat Times (Greenville, MS)
* Reno Gazette (Reno, NV)
* Pocono Record (Stroudsburg, PA)
* Northwest Arkansas Times (Fayetteville, AR)
* And many more

Now through June 19th, the Ancestry.com newspaper collection is open to the public for free. Search the Ancestry.com newspaper collection at http://www.ancestry.com/newspapers. (Please note: Users will need to register as members of Ancestry.com to access the free newspapers. This free registration does NOT require a credit card. Those registering for a free membership account will be asked to provide an email address.)"

List of Newspaper Indexes and Images Online

The Library of Congress website includes a section "Newspaper Archives/Indexes/Morgues." This page includes links to sites with newspaper indexes, images, directories, and other links for finding newspapers online. In this case it is largely directed at historical newspapers which are what genealogists generally seek. One section of the page tells which newspaper related sites have a fee involved. Be sure to check on some of the links to other general sites for more lists. Check back occasionally for updates to the lists. Now, if miraculously the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Minneapolis Star-Tribune and other Twin Cities newspapers were only indexed online before the late 1980s, I would be a totally happy camper.

Newspaper Indexes and Images Online

A wide variety of newspapers are indexed online and many have a link to the associated images. The majority require a subscription, but some are available at no charge in libraries. These are the links to several from the long list I will discuss over the next few weeks in greater detail:

http://www.ancestry.com/
http://www.genealogybank.com/
Google News Archive Search: http://news.google.com/archivesearch?ned=
http://www.highbeamresearch.com/
National Digital Newspaper Program: www.loc.gov/chroniclingamerica
http://www.newspaperarchive.com/
Utah Digital Newspapers: http://www.lib.utah.edu/digital/unews/


In upcoming blog posts I will discuss the contents of each and share comments on the usefulness, search capabilities, and breadth of them.