newspapers Archives - OnGenealogy

Fee or Free African American Newspapers

African American newspapers are one place to look for news about black communities that wasn't always reported in the popular press. It's possible to find names, marriages, and births and deaths in these collections. (And for African American research you won't want to limit yourself to strictly African American newspapers, just don't overlook them.) I'm easily distracted in newspaper research and find myself just reading random articles which isn't a very efficient use of time, but I have one relative I could only trace through newspapers. He was in the theater circuit and moved from city to city and lied about his age. I found his family by following him through newspapers. They're a valuable resource but it's easy to get sidetracked and just soak up the historical context. That's my disclaimer if you lose a day or more in newspapers. Fee/Subscription African American Newspapers Accessible Archives Accessible Archives has 9 African American newspapers …

Free Historical Newspapers for Genealogy and Family History

It's funny to realize there's a generation growing up that doesn't know what a newspaper is because they've never anticipated the Sunday comics or had a newspaper route, and there are older generations who are intimidated by mastering the new skill of searching newspapers online. But that's where the papers have gone, online. If you need a kick in the pants, recruit a young person to get you started in online newspaper research. They won't even know what a newspaper is, but point them in the right direction and they'll help you find pay dirt. However you do it, go online and start researching your family in historical newspapers. It can be a family history goldmine! Newspapers are great for birth and marriage announcements, obituaries, society pages, business news, legal woes, and historical context. We have some ancestors who were in the theatre business and the best information we have on them has come from newspapers. We can follow their show around the east coast and rea…

Canadiana Discovery Portal for Genealogy

Candiana.ca has a free search engine for its digital collections from libraries, museums, and archives throughout Canada. Unlike Héritage which searches specific collections held at Library and Archives Canada, the Canadiana Discovery Portal searches over 40 partnering institutions with over 65 million pages. The Portal provides a wealth of free Canadian history online, including: books, journals, directories, newspapers, government documents, photographs, maps, and postcards. Canadiana Discovery Portal is a great resource for genealogists and family historians looking for primary source material and images related to Canadian history and many of the images are in the public domain and can be used freely. There will be a paywall for some of the search returns and after viewing the initial few pages of a document you may need to subscribe to Early Canadiana Online to have full access to the document, including the ability to download copies in PDF format. Subscrip…