Newspapers: Chronicling America Continues Growth!

The Library of Congress recently announced that "since October 2011, the National Digital Newspaper Program has expanded the Chronicling America site by more than 550,000 historic newspaper pages published in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Including titles like the Wenatchee Daily World (Wenatchee, WA), the Anti-Slavery Bugle (New-Lisbon, OH) and the Montana News (Lewiston, MT), these pages have been digitized from collections in Arizona, California, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington. More than 4.7 million pages are now available online, published between 1836 and 1922." Read more about it here.

Chronicling America is just one of many websites across the Internet offering free digitized newspapers.  However, the fragmented nature of online newspapers can make finding the one that holds your family history quite a challenge.  That's why I wrote Everything You Need to Know About How to Find Your Family History in Newspapers. 


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Pre-Order Now Available for Signed Copies of How to Find Your Family History in Newspapers

CLICK HERE to pre-order your signed copy of Everything You Need to Know About...How to Find Your Family History in Newspapers today.

As I was writing the final chapter of my brand new book Everything You Need to Know About...How to Find Your Family History in Newspapers, I knew I wanted to put the book to the test by showing a case study.  I had been pouring my passion for the topic of newspaper research into this new volume for months and had set aside my own genealogy research in the process. Chapter 11 offered an opportunity to pull an item off my own to do list and use it as the guinea pig for an example.

I really wanted to find a record of my Great Grandparents marriage in the newspapers. They were married just a year or two before the Great San Francisco Earthquake rocked the county courthouse.  The official record no longer exists.  Newspapers were my last hope.

As I put my proven process covered in the book through it's paces, I started to get a little nervous.  What if I didn't hit pay dirt?  I had used the steps and worksheets countless times before, but this was a challenging task, and I had a deadline.  All the worry was for nothing.  Not only did I find the small snippet in the classified announcing their application for a marriage license - I found dozens of articles new to me detailing my Great Grandfather's work with the I.O.O.F. to help those suffering after the earthquake, and his management of a recreational baseball team complete with his home address.  I fell in love with newspapers all over again!


With the final chapter written, and the book is in production, I now have the incredible pleasure of announcing that How to Find Your Family History in Newspapers is available for pre-order.  I can't wait for you to get this book in your hands and I'll be signing each and every pre-ordered copy personally.  The book will be officially announced at RootsTech and shipping will begin Feb. 6.  In the meantime, please check out this preview.  Be sure and click "Expand" to have it fill your screen, and turn your speakers on as you will hear an audio version of Chapter 1.  (Isn't technology fun!!)

 More by Lisa Cooke

CLICK HERE to pre-order your signed copy of Everything You Need to Know About...How to Find Your Family History in Newspapers today.

See you in the Funny Papers!

Meet the Author of a Riveting Family History Tale in the Newest Episode of The Genealogy Gems Podcast

Recently I got an email from Jay in New York :

“I have been catching up with all of your family history podcasts. Over the years I have collected a wealth of information on the family. Some good, some not-so-good, some out in-the-open, some hidden.

How do you deal with revealing "forgotten" items about family members to other family members? I had an uncle who had a marriage at a very young age, and would like to have forgotten about it. My mother told me about it. I put it on the tree. While showing off the fruits of my labor to his family this "forgotten" marriage was revealed with not happy responses.

The things we find in our tree may not always be "good", How does a person deal with that? and revealing it to others?”

This is a great question! And in the newest Genealogy Gems Podcast episode #120 I have some answers for you.

Secrets, small and large can be found in many families.  Skeletons in the closet are often secrets closely guarded by family members.

It’s a tricky business navigating your way through the shakier branches of the family tree, so I’ve invited a special guest to join me on the show who has done an incredible job of climbing those branches in his own family.

Steve Luxenberg is a Washington Post associate editor and award-winning author. In his 25 years at The Post, he has headed the newspaper’s investigative staff and its Sunday section of commentary and opinion.  Steve is going to join me for the full episode to talk about investigating and dealing with family secrets as he did in  his book Annie’s Ghosts.  It’s a riveting tale that kept me feverishly tapping the “Next Page” key on my kindle. 

Annie’s Ghosts is about a family secret that Steve stumbled upon in the late 1990s.  His mother, who had always claimed to be an only child, had a sister, Annie.  And while that was a big surprise all by itself, it was just the beginning of a series of secrets and revelations that Steve unearthed by tapping into his long career as an investigative journalist, and employing newly found genealogy techniques and strategies. 

In this interview we talk about being aware of what’s missing in records and stories, rather than just focusing on what is on the page.  For those of you who are Premium Members this discussion is a great follow up to Premium Episode #77 where we talked about being more keenly aware during our research.

Steve’s also going to share he thoughts on storytelling, which he truly masters in this book. 

And then we get into some of the genealogical techniques he used: how to avoid tainting memories in Interviews, and how to balance the give and take as well as win trust with the person you are interviewing.  


And speaking of trust, Steve describes how he was able to be incredibly successful in obtaining sensitive documents and getting cooperation from various government agencies and other repositories.

He’s also going to tell us about a little known legal maneuver that he made that really made the difference for him in obtaining some of the most closely held documents and how you can use it too!

And finally he’ll share his personal feelings about what it was like to get a add a new member to his family, his long lost Aunt Annie.


Enjoy!

Quotes from Annie’s Ghosts:

“What I didn’t expect, as the week wore on, was that the family would expand to take in a new member.  But that’s what happened.  As people dipped in and out of the records, as the debates flew about what we knew and what we didn’t and whether we should be digging around in the past, Annie gradually became a part of the family consciousness.  She was no longer just a name on a hospital record.  She was no longer just a secret.”

“I stopped thinking like a son and started thinking like a journalist.”

“I offer to send her the letters; it’s an unexpected present for her, and I’m glad to be able to make the offer, because it allows me to give as well as take, something reporters can’t often do. It’s also a good way to win trust.” 

“I want to make sure that if she knows about Annie, she tells me before I tell her, so that I capture her spontaneous memory first.”