Friday, June 23, 2017

Seeking Advice on Searching Newspaper Archives When The Hits Are Numerous

So a local weekly newspaper has recently uploaded 55 years of newspapers to Newspapers.com.
That's 2860 issues.

Simple surname searches on just ancestral surnames (not including various and sundry branches) yield over 3000 hits. An average of at least one relative per issue. I wouldn't be surprised if I started searching on those branches I could get the average up to 2.

Of course, for most of these hits, I don't need to download the article. For classified ads, I might download one occurrence. I don't need to download box scores from high school baseball games. But I still need to go through the results. Keep track of my searches. And do it in such a way that I don't repeat the work.

Any suggestions on process?

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After some thought, I have come to the realization that when every issue might have an article of interest, search functions are no longer a time-saver. Especially when I am looking for multiple surnames, some of them less unique than others. I have been slowly going through microfilm at the library for a similar local paper, and I will have to treat this one similarly. It will be quicker, since I am not limited to library hours, and reading the online images are easier on the eyes than the microfilm.

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