The Family Tree Historical Newspapers Guide by James M. Beidler

Author:James M. Beidler [Beidler, James M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

NewspaperArchive, once on the forefront of newspaper digitization, still has newspapers for researchers.

All of that aside, NewspaperArchive does have many valuable newspapers in its collections. And, because it anticipated the digitization wave, it has exclusive digital rights to some of its microfilm clients’ newspapers. Happily, you can access the NewspaperArchive trove without dealing with the site directly. International subscription service MyHeritage <www.myheritage.com>, which has a few newspaper collections of its own and is working to acquire additional content in its never-ending-war with Ancestry.com for worldwide for-pay genealogy supremacy, had the NewspaperArchive newspaper databases as an on-loan item for several years. A subscription to British-based FindMyPast <www.findmypast.com> is also a “back-door” ticket to NewspaperArchive, as is a subscription to ProQuest (see the section on this later in the chapter).

For those wishing to subscribe directly to NewspaperArchive, seven-day trials are available for $6.95, and semi-annual subscriptions cost $49.95. By comparison, FindMyPast has a variety of subscription packages that include NewspaperArchive materials available from $9.95 a month (“US Starter”) to $239.50 annually (“World Premium” package).

Initial searches, which bring back a preview window of results, are free. You can start a search by filling in a basic search form (first names and last names or keywords) or the advanced search form that allows you to use any or all the following parameters: “With All of the Words, “With the Exact Phase,” “With at Least One of These Words” and “Without the Word(s).” You can also narrow initial searches by publication date and publication location. All this means that you can get a free feel for what the NewspaperArchive holdings, which include a significant number of international newspapers, may yield for you.

The home page of NewspaperArchive (image A) has a number of other tabs at the top of the page. Browse takes you to a number of ways to “drill down” to a particular state and city’s newspapers. (After several steps, you’ll finally see a specific title as well as dates covered.) The Historical Events tab has some of the same types of drilling down but adds click-ons to limit a search to a particular century. Obituaries limits the search to just that, while Clippings is a searchable collection of articles that have been saved by NewspaperArchive users. The Family Tree tab has subscribers’ family trees, and Search gives you a direct link to the Advanced Search boxes.

To access the NewspaperArchive collection through FindMyPast, go to the FindMyPast’s home page and look for “Newspaper records” in the list of records groups. This link brings you to a page to search just those records, with search boxes at the top for first name, last name, and keywords. You’ll want to click on the “US & World newspapers” button, then narrow your research results, first by country, then by state, publication, and either exact dates, date ranges, or exact dates with a “plus or minus.”

Here’s a step-by-step for saving or printing newspapers (including those from NewspaperArchive) on FindMyPast:

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