Follow Friday: Online Historical Directories and Newspapers

Last Friday I was unable to post a Follow Friday, so I thought I would suggest two sites today.  Both sites are maintained by the same person, and have similar missions, so it seems appropriate to mention them together.

For obvious reasons, Newspapers and City Directories are two extremely useful resources for genealogists.  Many are being digitized and put online, but if the researcher doesn't know they're there, they may spend the time to research them manually via microfilm, if the microfilm is available nearby, or not utilize the resource at all.

Miriam Robbins Midkiff of Ancestories decided there needed to be an online index for both resources, and has taken it upon herself to create them.  Online Historical Directories and Online Historical Newspapers.  They are both, by their vary nature, a work-in-progress.  Alone, either one of these would be worthy of commendation.

Currently, the Online Historical Directories index has listings in the US for all 50 states and the District of Columbia, as well as listings for Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, and Thailand.

Online Historical Newspapers, which is a newer project, has listings in the US for 20 states and the District of Columbia. 

Both sites have blogs which can be followed for updates on new additions:  Online Historical Newspapers and Online Historical Directories.

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The work done on these two sites impresses me, as I am familiar with the work a project of this nature involves. Back in 2000, I decided to create Victor Hugo Central - an index of online translations of material written by and about the French author (along with some public domain translations I've hand-entered.)  It became a time consuming project - one I enjoyed.  Then three years ago my time started being consumed by genealogy, which I also enjoy, but updates have dropped significantly.  Unfortunately, unlike my computer, it seems I have difficulty opening more than one Obsession Window at a time.