Community History Archives

Recently I learned about a new free archive website - Community History Archives

From their website:

The archives are across the United States and Canada. You can search or browse for communities, and then choose from one or more libraries nearby.

The number of participating libraries varies widely by location. Iowa has 247 libraries participating. Canada has 3. Texas has 57. Missouri has 2.

You are unable to do a sitewide search. You have to go to each community archive separately and search there. However, I have already found newspaper articles I had not found on other newspaper archive websites.

Including this little blurb by a newspaper's editor praising my great-grandfather's honey. 

It's also interesting to see that in 1905 there were already enough people choosing to have some food items shipped to them that the newspaper would address them.

The Hays County Time.
July 28, 1905

The finest honey on the market, so far as we have observed, is that shipped here by Mr M E Van Every, of Maxwell. Here is another pointer for those who would "live at home."

Partnership between St. Louis County Library and Newspapers.com

According to the April edition of PastPorts (the St. Louis County Library's History and Genealogy Newsletter)

St. Louis County Library signed a cooperative agreement with Newspapers.com on March 13 to digitize newspaper microfilm in its History & Genealogy (H&G) collection. The project will for the first time provide online electronic access to the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, 1853–1963; Anzeiger des Westens, 1843–1898; and Westliche Post, 1857–1938. Other newspapers include those that once served St. Louis African American, French-speaking, and Jewish communities. 

Over 2000 microfilm reels will be shipped in Mid-May to Newspapers.com. (They may have been considering the NGS Conference in early May when they scheduled the shipment.)

They don't list all the newspapers being digitized, but below are some of the defunct titles that could be included in the list. (It would be nice if they have worked out deals with some additional newspapers that are still ongoing.)

• Jewish Free Press, 1885 – 1887
• Jewish Tribune, Aug 29, 1879 – 1884
• Jewish Voice, Jan 6, 1888 – Dec 31, 1920
• Modern View-St. Louis (Jewish), Mar 21, 1913 - Aug 27, 1920; Mar 4, 1921 - Feb 10, 1928; Aug 24, 1928 - Jul 28, 1938; Feb 2, 1939 - Jul 25, 1940
• La Revue de l'Ouest (French), Jan 1854 – Dec 1854
• Le Patriote (French), 1878 – 1887
• St. Louis Palladium (African American), Jan 10, 1903 – Oct 5, 1907
• Przewodnik Polski (Polish), Jan. 8, 1903 – July 7, 1910; Feb. 27, 1913 – July 11, 1929; Feb 2, 1945 – Feb 22, 1945 
• St. Louis La Lega Italiana, Oct 9, 1914 – Dec 25, 1920 
• St. Louiske' Listy (Czech), Oct 23, 1902 – Sept 1, 1923

The digitization of the St. Louis Globe Democrat archives will likely be what interests most researchers. The St. Louis Post Dispatch has already been digitized, and made available through Newspapers.com, and for decades the two newspapers were the primary dailies. But the weekly specialized newspapers will be of great interest to many as well.

I've been slowly working my way backwards through the Modern View microfilm looking for ancestral surnames. It will be a pleasure to be able to search the digitized records from home. The quality of the microfilm isn't consistent, so Optical Character Recognition will be poor in spots. This will require browsing the newspapers as I am currently doing. However, I will be able to do it from home. Several of my ancestors came from Poland, though I suspect if they are going to appear in a local community paper, it will be one of the Jewish ones.

Pastports also says:

Researchers will be able to view newspaper images on the Newspapers.com website and search them by name or keyword. Newspapers.com can be used at St. Louis County Library locations and remotely by library cardholders living in the St. Louis metro area.

I wasn't aware Newspapers.com had been added to the library databases. It's the ProQuest Library Edition. The description states 4,000+ newspaper titles. Newspapers.com Basic has 11,400+ newspaper titles. Newspapers.com Premium has even more. If all of the newspapers that the library is digitizing will be available through ProQuest, I *suspect* they will also be available through a Newspapers.com Basic subscription.

Searching Digital Newspaper Archives: Don't stop with the names

My great grandfather's name is Barney Newmark, with a 'W.' How do you think I found the below article in my search of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch archives at Newspapers.com?

 Not by being creative with surname spellings. As you can see below, a search on the page yields no results for 'Neumark' (or, for that matter, 'Noumark'). Why not? I'm not sure. The search engine does just fine ignoring commas in places such as obituaries. I suspect it's just that Optical Character Recognition can be finicky, and will at times miss stuff.

Because of this, it's important to search for more than just an ancestor's name. If you know it, search for their address as well. The article above doesn't reveal much about my ancestor, but the classified below, from the August 10, 1952 edition, tells me when my great-great uncle, David Cruvant, put his pawnshop up for sale before moving to Louisiana, an approximate date for when the shop opened (I don't trust that it was exactly 1920), and it tells me his move was for health reasons.

Classified ads from 1954 also tell me that the business that bought the location and moved in was Veterans Linoleum and Tile, which became Becky's when the next generation of the family-owned business took over. Becky's Carpet and Tile closed in 2012, but had become an extremely well-known local business, so knowing that their first store was in the same store front as my great-great uncle's pawnshop means something to me. (And I'm looking for a photograph of Veterans Linoleum's Collinsville Avenue location to compare it to this 1920s-1930s photo.)

Also search for business names. The classified ad below, from May 4, 1902, doesn't say much, but it is the only appearance I've found other than in the City Directories of my second great grandfather, Selig Feinstein's, junk store, which he operated 1901-1902.

Maybe you know a relative was an officer of a local organization, and there is a newspaper article that mentions them by title and  not by name?

Finally, a search for names of neighborhoods can also yield important information. My research on the neighborhoods of Little Jerusalem and Carr Square has uncovered descriptions of the conditions my paternal ancestors lived in during the late 19th early 20th century. I even discovered a photograph which could be of family, though it isn't definite.

In short, search for everything you can think of connected with your ancestor. You don't know when your ancestor may be referred to, or even photographed, but not named. And you can't control mistakes made by faulty Optical Character Recognition.

St. Louis Post Dispatch Archives Searchable Back to 1874

A week ago, the St. Louis Post Dispatch announced that their archives back to 1874 were now searchable. They are being hosted by Newspapers.com. (It's not part of the Newspapers.com Basic subscription you receive through Ancestry's "All Access" pass. It has to be purchased separately, or through their Publishers+ subscription, which allows you access to other newspaper archives they are hosting.)

I was previously able to access 1874-1922 and 1988-current through ProQuest databases at St. Louis County Library, and my library card. However, this opened 66 additional years of articles. All of my paternal second great grandparents arrived in St. Louis between 1880 and 1910, and my maternal grandparents arrived in the 1920s, so this opened a potential goldmine. Additionally, no digital search yields complete results due to fading newsprint. I have already found at least one pre-1922 article on the Newspapers.com database that hadn't turned up in my ProQuest searches. (The article is in the ProQuest archive; using a different search term I have retrieved it.)

Can I share here the post-1922 articles that I find?

Everything pre-1923 is in the public domain. With more recent material, one needs permission from the source. Here's what the St. Louis Post Dispatch now says on their archives page:

"You can save or print clippings or entire pages and share what you find on social media."

Despite all my years of education, I am going to interpret 'can' to mean 'may.' This appears to be a blanket permission statement, as long as one keeps it to social media, which should include personal blogs like my own. [However, I am not going to apply the permission to articles from the Associated Press or other syndicates. I fully realize the Post Dispatch doesn't have the authority to grant permission for those. They aren't the source of the articles. I have previously requested permission from the AP on some news stories, and found their fees to be too high for my liking. Fortunately, it is the local stories that I am most interested in.]

Note: They are advertising that the dates available are up to 30 days ago. Currently, I can only find articles up through 2003. That will hopefully change. However, I still have access to current articles through the St. Louis County Library ProQuest database.

Show Me the Newspapers

Ancestry announced on Thursday a new website: Newspapers.com. Subscription rates are $80/year or $40/year for those who are already subscribing to Ancestry or Fold3. [Note: I rounded up 5 cents from the advertised prices.]

This inspired me to compare the newspaper selections at five major newspaper archival sites. I decided to focus on one state, fully realizing that the comparison was likely to differ somewhat depending upon which state I chose. However, I do not have the time to do this for every state. I chose the state I, personally, was most interested in. Missouri. My ancestors first moved to this state in the 1880s, and my wife's ancestors moved here a bit earlier.

I looked at the newspaper collections at Newspapers (N), Ancestry (A), NewspaperArchive (NA), GenealogyBank (GB), and ChroniclingAmerica (CA).  Of these five, Chronicling America is the only free offering, since it is a product of the Library of Congress. I have free access to NewspaperArchive through my library card. I also can access Ancestry's newspapers at my local library, but I can't access them from home without maintaining my subscription.

Utilizing the abbreviations above, I have noted where a title has shared coverage at a different site. If only a portion of the years are duplicated, I have indicated which years the other site has.  I've separated the titles each site has exclusively.

Note: There are some titles that look similar, but if a site listed them as separate, I assumed they were.

Newspapers.com (22 titles, 9 exclusive, 9 also at NewspaperArchive, 9 also at Ancestry, 5 at all three)

Exclusive

• Mexico Ledger (Mexico, Missouri)
• 1947 – 1977 (52,521 pages )
• Moberly Democrat (Moberly, Missouri)
• 1899 – 1922 (2,883 pages)
• Moberly Evening Democrat (Moberly, Missouri)
• 1899 – 1923 (13,901 pages)
• Moberly Morning Monitor (Moberly, Missouri)
• 1910 – 1916 (2,235 pages)
• Moberly Weekly Democrat (Moberly, Missouri)
• 1906 – 1909 (2,182 pages)
• Neosho News (Neosho, Missouri)
• 1953 – 1976 (7,194 pages)
• The Neosho Daily News (Neosho, Missouri)
• 1913 – 1976 (49,781 pages)
• The Neosho Times (Neosho, Missouri)
• 1913 – 1938 (10,553 pages)

Shared

• The Chillicothe Constitution-Tribune (Chillicothe, Missouri) [A 1920-1988]
• 1901 – 1988 (141,823 pages)
• Cole County Democrat (Jefferson City, Missouri) [NA]
• 1904 – 1905 (8 pages)
• The Daily Capital News (Jefferson City, Missouri) [A] [NA]
• 1937 – 1977 (52,108 pages)
• Daily Capital News and Jefferson City Post-Tribune (Jefferson City, Missouri) [NA]
• 1931 – 1933 (276 pages)
• Jefferson City Post-Tribune (Jefferson City, Missouri) [A] [NA]
• 1932 – 1967 (8,715 pages)
• Jefferson City Tribune-Post (Jefferson City, Missouri) [NA]
• 1927 – 1927 (333 pages)
• Joplin Globe (Joplin, Missouri) [NA] 
• 1921 – 1929 (27,082 pages)
• Magic City Free Press (Moberly, Missouri) [A] [NA]
• 1970 – 1974 (1,618 pages)
• Moberly Monitor-Index (Moberly, Missouri) [A]
• 1922 – 1964 (38,057 pages)
• Moberly Weekly Monitor (Moberly, Missouri) [A]
• 1929 – 1929 (552 pages)
• The News and Tribune (Jefferson City, Missouri) [A] [NA]
• 1933 – 1976 (6,729 pages)
• Sedalia Daily Democrat (Sedalia, Missouri) [A] [NA]
• 1871 – 1925 (4,698 pages)
• The Sedalia Democrat (Sedalia, Missouri) [A]
• 1949 – 1950 (6,455 pages )
• The Sikeston Herald (Sikeston, Missouri) [A]
• 1936 – 1960 (12,270 pages)

Ancestry.com (17 titles, 5 exclusive, 9 also at Newspapers, 6 also at NewspaperArchive, 5 at all three)

Exclusive

• Chillicothe Morning Constitution (Chillicothe, Missouri)
• 1889-1985
• The Chillicothe Constitution (Chillicothe, Missouri)
• 1901-1928
• The Constitution Tribune (Chillicothe, Missouri)
• 1985-1988
• Stars and Stripes Newspaper, WWI Edition, 1918-1919
• 1918-1919
• U.S., "Happy Days" Newspaper of the Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1940
• 1933-1940

[Note: I believe Ancestry lists these last two for every state.]

Shared

• Daily Capital News (Jefferson City, Missouri) [N] [NA]
• 1937-1977
• Sedalia Daily Democrat (Sedalia, Missouri) [N]
• 1871-1925
• Sedalia Democrat, The (Sedalia, Missouri) [N] [NA]
• 1949-1950
• Jefferson City Post-Tribune (Jefferson City, Missouri) [N 1932-1967] [NA]
• 1929-1974
• Joplin Globe (Joplin, Missouri) [NA]
• 1944-1958
• Magic City Free Press (Moberly, Missouri) [N] [NA]
• 1970-1974
• Moberly Monitor-Index (Moberly, Missouri) [N 1922-1964]
• 1922-1977
• Moberly Weekly Monitor (Moberly, Missouri) [N 1929]
• 1929-1932
• News and Tribune (Jefferson City, Missouri) [N 1933-1976] [NA]
• 1933-1977
• The Chillicothe Constitution Tribune (Chillicothe, Missouri) [N]
• 1920-1988
• The Maryville Daily Forum (Maryville, Missouri) [NA]
• 1940-1955
• The Sikeston Herald (Sikeston, Missouri) [N]
• 1936-1960

NewspaperArchive (31 titles, 21 exclusive, 9 also at Newspapers, 6 also at Ancestry, 6 at all three)

Exclusive

• Capital Daily News (1970)
• Jefferson City, Missouri
• Chillicothe Weekly Constitution (1902 - 1920)
• Chillicothe, Missouri
• Daily Capital News and Post Tribune (1931 - 1933)
• Jefferson City, Missouri
• Daily Democrat Tribune (1910 - 1924)
• Jefferson City, Missouri
• Daily Saint Charles Cosmos Monitor (1921 - 1953)
• Saint Charles, Missouri
• Democrat Tribune (1920 - 1922)
• Jefferson City, Missouri
• Jefferson City Daily Capital News (1918 - 1972)
• Jefferson City, Missouri
• Jefferson City Daily Tribune (1909)
• Jefferson City, Missouri
• Jefferson City Democrat Tribune (1915 - 1920)
• Jefferson City, Missouri
• Jefferson City Tribune (1909 - 1927)
• Jefferson City, Missouri
• Jefferson City Weekly Tribune (1909)
• Jefferson City, Missouri
• Joplin Daily Globe (1898 - 2012)
• Joplin, Missouri
• Joplin News Herald (1921 - 1970)
• Joplin, Missouri
• Joplin Sunday Globe (2010 - 2012)
• Joplin, Missouri
• Mexico School News Roundup (1954)
• Mexico, Missouri
• Missouri Gazette Public Advertiser (1822)
• St Louis, Missouri
• Missouri Republican (1823 - 1824)
• St Louis, Missouri
• St Louis Star Times (1945)
• St Louis, Missouri
• St Louis Weekly Globe Democrat (1896 - 1901)
• St Louis, Missouri
• St Louis World Fair (1904)
• St Louis, Missouri
• Weekly Democrat Tribune (1911 - 1914)
• Jefferson City, Missouri

Shared

• Cole County Democrat (1904 - 1909) [N]
• Jefferson City, Missouri
• Daily Capital News (1920 - 1977) [A 1930-1977] [N 1930-1977]
• Jefferson City, Missouri
• Daily Capital News and Jefferson City Post Tribune (1931 - 1933) [N]
• Jefferson City, Missouri
• Daily Democrat (1871 - 1999) [N 1871-1925] [A 1871-1925]
• Sedalia, Missouri
• Jefferson City News and Tribune (1933 - 1978) [N 1933-1976] [A 1933-1977]
• Jefferson City, Missouri
• Jefferson City Post Tribune (1927 - 1978) [A 1929-1974] [N 1932-1967]
• Jefferson City, Missouri
• Jefferson City Tribune Post (1927) [N]
• Jefferson City, Missouri
• Joplin Globe (1915 - 2012) [A 1944-1958] [N 1921-1929]
• Joplin, Missouri
• Magic City Free Press (1970 - 1974) [A] [N]
• Moberly, Missouri
• Maryville Daily Forum (1940 - 1955) [A]
• Maryville, Missouri

GenealogyBank (15 titles, 15 exclusive)

• Hannibal - Missouri Courier
• 1/18/1849 – 12/28/1854
• Kansas City - Kansas City Star
• 9/18/1880 – 12/31/1941
• Kansas City - Kansas City Times
• 5/1/1884 – 1/31/1896
• Kansas City - Rising Son
• 1/16/1903 – 12/28/1907
• Kansas City - Cosmopolitan
• 8/22/1914 – 11/15/1919
• Sedalia - Sedalia Times
• 8/31/1901 – 12/19/1903
• St. Louis - St. Louis Republic
• 5/1/1888 – 10/31/1900
• St. Louis - Daily Missouri Republican
• 3/1/1841 – 4/1/1888
• St. Louis - St. Louis Palladium
• 1/10/1903 – 10/5/1907
• St. Louis - Daily Commercial Bulletin
• 5/18/1835 – 12/31/1838
• St. Louis - Weekly St. Louis Pilot
• 1/6/1855 – 11/15/1856
• St. Louis - Missouri Gazette and Public Advertiser
• 3/23/1808 – 9/18/1818
• St. Louis - St. Louis Enquirer
• 3/17/1819 – 12/18/1824
• St. Louis - St. Louis Clarion
• 12/18/1920 – 4/2/1921
• Washington - Die Washingtoner Post
• 11/17/1870 – 11/14/1878

Chronicling America (57 titles, 57 exclusive)

• The Professional world.
• Columbia, Mo., 1901-1903
• The Cape weekly tribune.
• Cape Girardeau, Mo., 1914-1914
• Fair play.
• Ste. Genevieve [Mo.], 1872-1921
• The Jasper news.
• Jasper, Mo., 1901-1922
• The Holt County sentinel.
• Oregon, Mo., 1865-1880
• The Hayti herald.
• Hayti, Mo., 1909-1922
• The state republican.
• Jefferson City, Mo., 1890-1896
• The Missouri herald.
• Hayti, Mo., 1922
• The Cape County herald.
• Cape Girardeau, Mo., 1911-1914
• The Montgomery tribune.
• Montgomery City, Mo., 1900-1910
• The St. Joseph observer.
• St. Joseph, Mo., 1915-1922
• The Lincoln County herald.
• Troy, Lincoln County, Mo., 1866-1873
• The state journal.
• Jefferson City, Mo., 1872-1878
• The Kansas City sun.
• Kansas City, Mo., 1914-1920
• Boon's Lick times.
• Fayette, Mo., 1840-1848
• The Cape Girardeau Democrat.
• Cape Girardeau, Mo., 1891-1901
• Hannibal journal.
• Hannibal, Mo., 1853-1853
• The County paper.
• Oregon, Mo., 1881-1883
• The Holt County sentinel.
• Oregon, Mo., 1883-1921
• Osage Valley banner.
• Tuscumbia, Miller County, Mo., 1879-1881
• The Weekly tribune and the Cape County herald.
• Cape Girardeau, Mo., 1914-1918
• Monroe City Democrat.
• Monroe City, Mo., 1898-1919
• Kansas City journal.
• Kansas City, Mo., 1890-1899
• Glasgow weekly times.
• Glasgow, Mo., 1848-1861
• Western union.
• City of Hannibal, Mo., 1850-1851
• Hannibal journal.
• Hannibal, Mo., 1852-1853
• University Missourian.
• Columbia, Mo., 1908-1916
• The Saline republican.
• Marshall, Mo., 1898-1899
• Morgan County democrat.
• Versailles, Mo., 1903-1906
• Morgan County republican.
• Versailles, Mo., 1906-1914
• The Rich Hill tribune.
• Rich Hill, Mo., 1903-1910
• The tribune.
• Rich Hill, Mo., 1901-1902
• Mexico Missouri message.
• Mexico, Audrain County, Mo., 1899-1918
• The Jackson herald.
• Jackson, Mo., 1901-1910
• Glasgow weekly times.
• Glasgow, Howard County, Mo., 1866-1869
• The Howard union.
• Glasgow, Mo., 1865-1865
• The news boy.
• Benton, Scott County, Mo., 1894-1897
• Scott County kicker.
• Benton, Mo., 1901-1917
• The daily Missourian.
• Columbia, Mo., 1916-1917
• The Evening Missourian.
• Columbia, Mo., 1917-1920
• The Columbia evening Missourian.
• Columbia, Mo., 1920-1922
• Saturday morning visitor.
• City of Warsaw, Mo., 1848-1849
• The Sedalia weekly bazoo.
• Sedalia, Mo., 1877-1893
• Weekly graphic.
• Kirksville, Adair Co., Mo., 1880-896
• The Troy herald.
• Troy, Mo., 1873-1878
• Salt River journal.
• Bowling Green, Mo., 1839-1841
• The radical.
• Bowling Green [Mo., 1841-1845
• The St. Louis Republic.
• St. Louis, Mo., 1900-1906
• Kansas City daily journal.
• Kansas City, Mo., 1895-1897
• Sedalia weekly conservator.
• Sedalia, Mo., 1903-1908
• Democratic banner.
• Bowling Green, Pike County, Mo., 1845-1851
• Hannibal journal and western union.
• Hannibal, Mo., 1851-1852
• Richmond democrat.
• Richmond, Ray County, Mo., 1879-1888
• The Rising son.
• Kansas City, Mo., 1903-1907
• The Andrew County Republican.
• Savannah, Mo., 1871-1876
• The weekly tribune.
• Cape Girardeau, Mo., 1918-1919
• The Marshall republican.
• Marshall, Saline County, Mo., 1899-1914

Conclusions

1) Newspapers.com is definitely not merely a duplicate of the selection at Ancestry. Nor is it a duplicate of the selection at NewspaperArchive. There is overlap, but all three have unique coverage.

2) GenealogyBank and Ancestry are essentially tied with 15 titles in Missouri, not counting the two national titles at Ancestry. However, GenealogyBank's titles are all exclusive. And they have coverage in St. Louis and Kansas City the other sites don't have. I don't know if it holds up in other states, but in Missouri GenealogyBank seems to have an urban focus, while the other sites focus rurally.

3) If a researcher isn't utilizing ChroniclingAmerica - they are missing out on an excellent free resource.

4) Personally, I don't see a strong need to subscribe to Newspapers.com.  However, this choice is going to depend entirely on the newspapers of interest for each individual researcher.

Legacy's ObitMessenger Service now *Free*

I just received an email from Legacy.com.  (The date in the first paragraph says 11/16, but I received the email today, 11/18)

Dear ObitMessenger Subscriber,


We are very pleased to announce that on 11/16/2010 we will launch an upgraded version of our ObitMessenger^TM service. One of the biggest changes: ObitMessenger^TM will be free with no sign-up or annual fees. Here are some of the other exciting upgrades:


* Select up to five keywords and we'll search both the deceased's name and the obituary text.
* Search as many or as few newspapers as you like, and update your newspaper list at any time.
* To streamline your results e-mail, we will now include four lines of text per obituary with a link to access the full obituary.
* You will now be able to choose a secret question for account security. As a current subscriber, your secret question will default to your mother's maiden name. You will have the option to leave as-is or select a new question.


Your current account information (including login, password, keywords and newspapers) will be carried over to the upgraded ObitMessenger^TM service. In other words, no action is necessary on your part.


You can visit your account here.


If you have any questions, please contact us at obitmessenger@legacy.com.


Thank you,
Legacy.com

Legacy handles the obituaries for hundreds of newspapers across the US and Canada, so this is a great way to retrieve obituaries mentioning a particular surname regardless of what newspaper they happen to appear in.

Previously, you could search for five surnames in every newspaper they managed, but it would only find an obituary if it was the surname of the deceased -- not if the surname appeared in the text as a relative, etc.  And this cost $40/year.

You could also search for five keywords/phrases in one newspaper.  It wouldn't matter where the words appeared in the text of the obituary.  This cost $15/year.  (And they prohibited words such as "funeral" or "flowers" preventing it from being used as a means to get every obituary from a single newspaper emailed to you.)

The local newspaper stopped updating their RSS feed about a year ago, and I'm not pleased with the online interface, so I've been fiddling around with the $15/year option for a little over a month trying to find the perfect combination of keywords to get the most local obituaries sent to me via email.  I was more than happy to pay the $15 if I was comfortable I was receiving most of the obituaries that were important to me. The maximum I've achieved is somewhere between 25-40% of the total, depending upon the day. I was satisified with the results.  (I was using the names of three funeral homes, the word 'mortuary', and the word fragment 'cremat'.)

Since each 'account' is tied to an email address only, I have several email addresses, and the Terms of Service don't appear to prohibit setting up multiple accounts, it shouldn't be difficult to now set up a few different accounts with the names of all the major funeral homes in the area, and in this fashion get close to all of the obituaries emailed to me.

I've also set up an account that searches for five of my more uncommon surnames across their network. 

My only complaint?

I paid $15 a little over a month ago for a full year account.  And now it's free.


One other note: I do not use my mother's maiden name as a security passcode anywhere.  I maintain a genealogy blog where anyone who wanted to could look it up. I'm not silly.

UPDATE : The emails now contain adverts for flowers and genealogy services.  I see nothing wrong with this.  I am more than happy to see these daily adverts in place of an annual fee.

Update 2: Legacy added a comment, and as they state, and I hadn't noticed, it is possible to create multiple searches on one email address, so multiple email addresses are no longer necessary. 

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.

***

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.

Follow Friday: Footnote's Newspaper Archive

I am focusing on free resources for my Follow Friday series, and Footnote isn't free.  However, for the month of May, they are providing free access to their newspaper archive.

It's an opportunity you may not want to miss.

SNGF: Database Wishes

Randy at Genea-Musings for his weekly Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, challenges:

Define one or more genealogy or family history databases, that are not currently online, that would really help you in your research. Where does this database currently reside?

It almost seems like copying his selection, but I've found newspaper archives so helpful. My selections:

1) The St. Louis Post Dispatch

1874-1922 is online, if you have access to ProQuest. 1988-current is also online, if you have access to NewsBank, or through the newspaper's own archives, though they charge to read the articles. The 66 years inbetween aren't online to my knowledge. The St. Louis Public Library has a great index of the Post Dispatch obituaries (1880-1930, 1942-1945, 1960-1965, 1992-2008). As wonderful as it is, there are gaps. Bob Doerr's website has the obituaries indexed from 1975-1977. (Bob Doerr edited the Missouri State Genealogical Association Journal from 1992-2009. He passed away in September.)

2) The St. Louis Globe Democrat

The Mercantile Library is working on an index of their massive (1930-1986) Clippings file. This too is wonderful, but I'm greedy and want more.

It would be great if a historical archive similar to ProQuest's for the Post Dispatch was created. The St. Louis County Library has the paper on microfilm back to 1853, when it was The Missouri Democrat. (The library does have an index of obituaries for the Globe for the year 1880. It's a start.)

3) St. Louis Jewish Newspapers

An index or database for

• The St. Louis Jewish Tribune 1879-1884
• The St. Louis Free Press 1885-1887
• The St. Louis Jewish Voice 1888-1920
• The St. Louis Jewish Light 1947-1977

The above four papers for the years above are available on microfilm at the St. Louis County Library. The Jewish Light is still in existence; Bound copies from 1947 to current can be found at the Saul Brodsky Community Library.

St. Louis Globe Democrat Clipping File

I just learned that the St. Louis Mercantile Library at the University of Missouri - acquired St. Louis Globe Democrat's clippings file - also known as the newspaper's 'morgue' - when the paper ceased publication in 1986. Over 10,000,000 separate articles.

They are in the process of compiling an online database. (I'm not certain how many articles they've indexed so far, but I've found several articles to look up on a future outing.)

If one finds an article of interest, one can go to the Mercantile Library to find the clipping. If you don't live in St. Louis, there are also research guidelines if you'd like someone to copy the clipping for you.

One could also go to the St. Louis County Library, which has the newspaper on microfilm. For those who don't live in St. Louis, they too have research guidelines if you'd like someone to copy the article for you. (And their prices are a bit less.) Unfortunately, the Mercantile Library's database doesn't provide a page number - just a date, and description. This is enough for the County Library to do the research for you if it's an obituary. But they might not search the entire issue for an article.

January 1910 - Marital Motivations

Among the many news clippings I found in the St. Louis Post Dispatch (1874-1922) database I mentioned on Monday were listings of marriage licenses. Below is one of them from January of 1910.
I've placed a box around the two couples that interest me: Sisters Nellie and Bella Newmark, and their two future husbands, Morris Fudemberg and Charles Cohen. Nellie and Bella were both sisters of my great grandfather, Barney. Last Tuesday I posted a picture of Nellie and Barney in London.

This actually isn't new information for me, as I found their marriage information in the microfilm department of the St. Louis County Library early in my research.

But their marriages do raise a question in my mind to which I suspect no one alive knows the answer. Nellie and Bella arrived at Ellis Island in March of 1909. They were in St. Louis by April. They both took out a marriage license the following January. If family information is correct, in January of 1910, Nellie would have been two months shy of 21, and Bella two months shy of 20. Two whirlwind romances? Or was there a hidden impetus to marry someone?

Or perhaps one not so hidden - a desire for better living conditions. Their home on Wash Street was two blocks west of the area studied by the Civic League of St. Louis in their 1908 study of tenement conditions (see previous entry). But I fear those two blocks didn't make too much of a difference.

Update: Just discovered that Google Books scanned the Civic League's study shortly after I wrote my blog post last October. In my opinion, the text is easier to read online at Google, but the copy at Harvard has better scans of the images.


[I drove this afternoon down Cole (nee Wash) Street, and there is a building with the address 1613. I am unsure of the age of the building. Selby Pl, where Charles Cohen lived, intersects Cole one block East.]

A late Thanksgiving Day Present

I received my email today announcing the December 2009 PastPorts (.pdf) - the newsletter for the Special Collections Department of the St. Louis County Library.

On page one is the announcement:

ProQuest Historical Newspapers: St. Louis Post-Dispatch (1874-1922) electronic database is now available for use in any St. Louis County Library location. It is also accessible at home by patrons with a valid St. Louis County Library card who live in the metropolitan St. Louis statistical area. The database is searchable, making it easy to find newspaper articles about specific persons or events.

It's an 8 page newsletter, but I've gotten no further than that paragraph, and it's been 2 hours! I made the simple mistake of following the link before I was done.

I count 31 news articles I've downloaded, ranging from basic marriage license announcements, to arrests for gambling, reports of car accidents (no serious injuries), and some partial answers to questions I've raised in prior posts.

I think my next step is to finish reading the newsletter, and then start sorting out the information I've obtained.

The Dead are Rising From the Grave in St. Louis!

It seems fitting that this is announced a couple days before Halloween.

But when a business closes its doors, and the doors remain closed for 23 years, you pretty much assume it's dead.

There are those who will likely argue that if a business opens under the name of a business that died 23 years before, it's not really the same business, and they can't really claim "134 years of Public Service" or whatever the number of years of public service the former business claimed. Even if they hire some of the same employees.

Their Press Release follows.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 29, 2009

St. Louis Globe-Democrat returning to St. Louis

ST. LOUIS – Twenty-three years ago today the St. Louis Globe-Democrat published its last print edition. On Tuesday, December 8, 2009 the St. Louis Globe-Democrat will again serve the metro area as an online newspaper via our website www.globe-democrat.com.

Dan Rositano, publisher of the Globe-Democrat, announced today that the site will focus on providing the best user experience in St. Louis, utilizing the latest technology and news distribution methods.

“We are excited to combine today’s online technology with the storied tradition of the Globe-Democrat,” Rositano said. “We are proud to continue the history of the Globe-Democrat in the new digital world.”

The website will be a free service, and readers can register their e-mail addresses on the site beginning today, Rositano said, to receive more details about the technology and people that will make the site unique in St. Louis. Readers will also be able to sign up to receive breaking news, sports and topical alerts through email, smart phone or on their mobile phone.

“We are putting together a quality staff whose names will be familiar to former Globe-Democrat readers and all St. Louisians,” Rositano said. “Our columnists will be among the most-read voices in both St. Louis and the world today, covering news, sports, politics and all issues of the day.”

The St. Louis Globe-Democrat was first published on July 1, 1852 as the Missouri Democrat and in 1875 merged with the St. Louis Globe to become the Globe-Democrat. The newspaper’s last print edition was published on Oct. 29, 1986.

“For more than 134 years, St. Louisians received their news from the great writers at the Globe-Democrat,” Rositano said. “We are going to build on their legacy and combine great reporting and writing with the cutting edge of technology, giving readers today’s news and sports on multiple media platforms.”

(For more information, please call Dan Rositano at 314-487-3569)

Whether it is the return of a 134 year old newspaper that disappeared 23 years ago, or a brand new newspaper, it still could provide another news source for St. Louisans. The quality of that news source remains to be seen.

St. Louis Post Dispatch Obituaries - and other area newspapers

CURRENT INFORMATION CAN BE FOUND HERE


One of the problems with the blog-format is that one finds oneself rewriting old posts with updated information. The old posts remain with the outdated, sometimes inaccurate information.

For example, I have written several times about researching obituaries in St. Louis, particularly for the St. Louis Post Dispatch. I'm going to do it again, and I'm now going to add a link at the top of all my old posts to this entry, so that anyone who finds those old pages doesn't leave the site with outdated information.

And if I write another post in the future, I will add a link at the top of this entry, and update the links in the prior entries.

The St. Louis Public Library Obituary Search

The St. Louis Public Library has created a searchable index for St. Louis Post Dispatch obituaries covering the years: 1880-1930, 1942-1945, 1960-1964, and 1992-2008. (I suspect they will continue to update the index as time goes by.)

Two examples:

1) A great-grandfather's entry:

Feinstein, Herman M. St. Louis Post-Dispatch 1963 11/8 p1B, Article 11/9 p5A

His classified obituary appeared on November 8th, 1963 on page 1B. An article appeared on November 9th, on page 5A.

2) The entry for one of Herman's brothers, who died as an infant

Feinstein, David St. Louis Post-Dispatch 1896 Burial permit 3/18

The burial permit appeared March 18th, 1896. The page number isn't indexed in this case, but we still have the date of the newspaper. The burial permit listings contained significantly less information than an obituary. Usually just a name, date and address. I know that David was definitely Herman's brother, though, because the address matches the address in the city directories for the family.

In addition to the search engine, they have an index-by-year that can be browsed, leading to the same entries.

St. Louis Post Dispatch - 1975-1977

An index for these years can be found on Bob Doerr's website. He has been the editor of the Missouri State Genealogical Association Journal since 1992.

St. Louis Post Dispatch Archives 1988-Current

The Post Dispatch website allows you to search obituaries back to 1988, and then it gives you the option of downloading the obituaries directly from the site for $2.95. This searches every word, so you can find entries that mention surnames of children, etc. However, the search engine will not capture every obituary, so it is useful to check the indexes above for those after 1992.

St. Louis Argus Obituaries

"The ST. LOUIS ARGUS serves as a valuable resource for deaths in the local African-American community, especially during the early 20th century, when obituaries or death notices for this segment of the population were generally not carried in major area newspapers."

On an old version of the St. Louis Public Library website they have obituaries from the St. Louis Argus (1915-1919, 1921-1927, 1942-1945)

I suspect over time these will be moved to the same obituary search engine as the Post Dispatch obituaries.

The Westliche Post Obituaries

The St. Louis County Library has an index for The Westliche Post, a German language newspaper

The index currently covers the years 1880-1887, with the indexes for 1881 and 1882 only covering 6 months each.

On the other side of the Mississippi river

Belleville, Illinois Daily Advocate

An index for vital statistics (Adoptions, Births, Baptisms, Marriages, Divorces, Deaths) 1927-1954 at the St. Clair Genealogical Society.

The St. Clair Genealogical Society also has indexes for the Belleville News Democrat (1994-2007), Freeburg Tribune (1904-1939), Lebanon Advertiser (1917-1921), and the Millstadt Enterprise (1897-1949). Scroll down their homepage for links to each of them. There is a site-search box at the bottom of the page, though it doesn't include the Daily Advocate index.

How to Get a Copy of the Obituary

If you do live in St. Louis, you can find the obituary in the newspaper microfilm archives at either the St. Louis County or St. Louis City headquarter libraries. (Only the County library has The Westliche Post on microfilm. Both have the St. Louis Argus, but the County library doesn't appear to have the years 1942-1945.)

You can also request the County library or City library photocopy and mail it to you. The fee is minimal at both places.

For the Illinois newspapers, the Belleville Public Library is the place to go.

Where do I click?

In the comments to my Disaster post, Thomas MacEntee of Thomas 2.0 suggested I research old newspaper articles to see if there were cholera or typhoid outbreaks in Texas and Pennsylvania in 1840. I haven't found the answer to that question yet, but that did inspire me to search some of the old newspaper resources online for my Sliver ancestors.

I haven't focused much on this branch before. Even though I don't know the parents of, or much of anything about, my fourth great grandfather, John Sliver, I've focused my research elsewhere. There's been a lot of research done on the family tree of his wife (Barbara Fretz), so it wasn't as if the tree completely stops there, and I think I partially had the concern that I'd experience the same problems I had with my Denyer relatives in searching newspaper articles. Optical Character Recognition by its nature has to be a little fuzzy, and as Denyer and Denver are easily confused, so would Sliver and Silver.

But I knew his daugther, Elizabeth Sliver, was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and that she married William Denyer in Baltimore, Maryland, before they headed South to Texas. So I knew where to expect the articles to be. And the search turned out better than I expected.

At GenealogyBank, I found in several issues of the Baltimore Patriot, "lists of letters" left in the Post Office, like the one above. The Slivers (Parents John and Barbara, along with daughter Elizabeth) appeared a few times from 1818-1820. I wanted to know where to click to view the letter, but apparently that feature isn't operational yet.

While it's just a name in a list, it does place them in Baltimore. Elizabeth married William Denyer in Baltimore in 1821. None of the brief biographies I'd read in family histories mentioned that the Sliver family had definitively moved there from Pennsylvania. I knew William Denyer also spent time in Bucks County, so Elizabeth and William might have gone to Baltimore on their own.

I know Elizabeth's mother, Barbara, joined Elizabeth and William on their journey south, as she died in Texas, though I don't know when and where John died. It could have been at either endpoint, or on the journey inbetween.

I also turned up an 1851 obituary for an Abraham Sliver in Baltimore. I'm not sure if he's related or not, but in the 1810 census there is an Abram, John and a Henry Sliver in the same village in Bucks County, all with small children. Siblings? Cousins? Happenstance? It's not clear.

But I do have a sliver of more data.