Why use newspapers?
Newspapers provide a day-to-day account of the lives and society of your ancestors and their family relationships, customs, social issues, and cultural values. Examining the history of their era gives you an understanding into what their daily work and leisure life was like. Newspapers can also help us break through genealogy “brick walls” by containing biographical information not found anywhere else.
Types of newspapers
The types of newspapers include national, city, county, academic, ethnic, religious, public or private. Some are free while most are by paid subscription.
Types of newspaper articles
The picture above has articles about mail pick up, a description of a wedding from Le Louisianais a French newspaper from Convent, La, and a surprise party. The list below has different of types of articles that can be found in newspapers:
Obituaries, birth announcements, marriage license applications, engagement and wedding anniversaries, divorces, coroner’s inquests, funeral notices, family reunions, and post office list of letters to be picked up. Classifieds have personals, probate notices, court actions, advertisements for businesses or to sell or buy, women’s pages, social columns, society pages, school related articles, military announcements, letters to the editors, letters to Santa Claus, sheriff’s sales, shipping news, slave ads, runaway slave ads, runaway wife ads (husband not responsible for her debts), and more.
Steps to newspaper research
1. Know who you are looking for: Did your ancestors live in an urban or rural environment? Did they attend college, church, public or private school or university? Are they of a certain ethnic origin?
2. Locate the newspaper you need: If you search Chronicling America, you can find the paper that was in circulation where and when your ancestor lived. Start with the state that your ancestor lived in and narrow it down to county then city. Start broad to catch all people with the same last name. Especially when your last name is not common.
3. Search with variants of your ancestor’s name: For example, John Anthony Smith could be listed as John A. Smith, J. A. Smith, Jno Smith, Jno A. Smith, Mr. Smith, John Smith, Jack Smith, J. Anthony Smith, J. Andy Smith, or J. Tony Smith. Deliberately misspell the name to catch mistakes.
Females can be listed by either/both maiden name or married name. She could be Mrs. (husband’s name), Mrs. (her first Name) married name, or Mrs. (any variation of her husband’s name).
4. Online databases: Check back often to the website that has the newspaper you need as content is added daily. Not all newspapers are digitalized (some are on microfilm or bound in books) and may not be indexed so use World Cat, Chronicling America, or a local historical society to find if a library near you has the newspapers you need. Our library has recently expanded its online collection of the Gainesville Sun to include back to 1911.
Access Our Newspaper Databases