NEWSPAPERS IN FAMILY HISTORY

• Welcome and Introduction to Class
• Why Newspapers Are Important and Examples in Family History
• Articles About Using Newspapers
• Sources for Finding Online Newspapers
• Assignment

• Instructors are Donald R. and Diane M. Snow ( snowd@math.byu.edu and dms34@juno.com ) of Provo, Utah; St. George, Utah; and Nauvoo, Illinois.
• These notes with active Internet links are posted on the Utah Valley PAF Users Group website http://uvpafug.org >  Class Outlines >  Don's Listings .   Many other class notes for family history are posted there, too.
• Newspapers started in the U.S. in 1690 (see Library of Congress website below) and are a rich source of genealogy data.  This class will discuss some ways of finding and using that information.

• News articles and photos -- school, military, current events, both local and worldwide  
• Vital records and obituaries -- births, marriages, deaths 
• Social and society columns
• Legal notices and public announcements 
• Local news
• Historical information in newpapers like the New York Times
• Classified ads -- e.g. "Search for Missing Friends" ads in The Boston Pilot -- http://www.newenglandancestors.org/database_search/MissingFriends_VOL1-8.asp 

• About.com articles and links about newspapers
  • http://genealogy.about.com/od/newspapers/Newspapers.htm 
  • http://genealogy.about.com/od/historic_online/Historic_Newspapers_Online.htm
• US Newspaper Program --http://www.neh.gov/projects/usnp.html
• Articles by Kimberly Powell
• "7 Tips for Searching Digitized Newspapers" -- http://genealogy.about.com/od/newspapers/tp/news_search_tips.htm?nl=1
• "Family History in the News" -- http://genealogy.about.com/cs/newspapers/a/news_research_2.htm?nl=1 
• British Newspapers 1800-1900
  • British newspapers 1800-1900 --http://newspapers.bl.uk/blcs/
  • Dick Eastman -- http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2009/05/british-newspapers-18001900-online.html

• Linkpendium -- http://www.linkpendium.com -- major listing of US newspapers in each state, county, and town
• http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~websites/  -- Go to state > county > city 
• http://www.usgenweb.org/ -- Go to state > county > city
• National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) -- http://www.loc.gov/ndnp/ 
• Library of Congress Digital Collections -- http://www.loc.gov/library/libarch-digital.html -- and Chronicling America -- http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/ 
• Cyndislist -- http://www.cyndislist.com > Newspapers
• US Newspaper List -- http://www.usnpl.com/ 
• Internet Public Library -- http://www.ipl.org/
• Family History Library Catalog -- http://www.familysearch.org/eng/Library/FHLC/frameset_fhlc.asp  -- do keyword search for things like "newspapers" and "utah" 
• Google's online newspapers -- http://news.google.com/archivesearch -- click on "More about News archive search" in upper right corner
• Quincy (Illinois) Public Library website --  http://www.quincylibrary.org
  • Historical Newspaper Archive (go to Reference and Research tab) -- many articles about the Mormons in Nauvoo 
  • US National Newspaper websites (go to Reference and Research tab) -- links to many current national newspapers  
• Utah Digital Newspapers -- http://digitalnewspapers.org/ 
• Commercial sites
  • Genealogy Bank --www.genealogybank.com -- large collection of historic newspapers - can search and see snippets for free 
  • Godfrey Memorial Library -- http://www.godfrey.org/ -- available for free at all FHC's and through personal subscription for $45 per year 
    • London (Digital) Times is on Godfrey -- http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/  
    • Many other newspapers
  • Newspaper Archive -- http://newspaperarchive.com/Default.aspx  -- claims to be the largest online newspaper archive ($72/year) -- available through Godfrey Memorial Library (see above)
  • Gale Digital Collections -- http://www.gale.cengage.com/DigitalCollections/  
  • Ancestry -- http://ancestry.com 
  • Footnote -- http://go.footnote.com/results.php?xid=275 -- free at FHC's
  • World Vital Records -- http://www.worldvitalrecords.com/contentlisting.aspx?cat=news&kbid=1117 -- free at FHC's
  • Historic Newspaper Archives -- http://www.historicnewspaper.com/  
  • Readex American Newspapers -- http://www.readex.com/readex/index.cfm 
• Many current newspapers have a website with recent archives and many are free -- Try Google and other search engines
  • New York Times -- http://www.nytimes.com/ -- free registration; archives start with first paper in 1851; do a search and you will see the dates open that you can click on for dates from 1851
  • Chicago Tribune 1852 - Present -- http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/chicagotribune/advancedsearch.html
  • Toronto Star -- http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/thestar/about.html -- free archives only goes back to 1985
  • Los Angeles Times -- http://www.latimes.com/  -- free registration
  • Salt Lake Deseret News -- http://deseretnews.com/home 
  • Salt Lake Tribune -- http://www.sltrib.com/  
  • St. George Spectrum -- http://www.thespectrum.com/ 
• For links to early vital records in Utah newspapers see my class notes on LDS & Utah Records on http://uvpafug.org > Class Outlines > Don's Listings

ASSIGNMENT

1. Search the New York Times archives to see if one of your ancestors is mentioned in it somewhere.
2. Search the Quincy Public Library Historical Newspaper Archive for Nauvoo and Mormon and see what is there. 
3. See if you can find a digitized small-town newspaper online that has something about one of your ancestors or where they lived.
4. If you have Utah ancestors, try searching for their names in the Utah Digital Newspapers.