The Arkansas Pearl Rush

Posted on May 6, 2021 by Jenny Ashcraft

In the 1850s, a New Jersey shoemaker found a large pearl inside a mussel pulled from a New Jersey river. The valuable pearl was sold to Tiffany & Co. for $1500. The find inspired others to scour freshwater rivers and lakes, hoping to find more gems. The hunt for pearls moved south, and in the early 1880s, more pearls were discovered in Arkansas. The discovery set off the Arkansas pearl rush which produced more than $2.5 million in pearls annually before the mussel population began to dwindle around 1905.

A group of Arkansas pearl hunters examine a pearl in 1905

It was the discovery of a large pearl in 1897 that fueled the Arkansas pearl rush. Dr. J. Hamilton Meyers found a large, valuable pink pearl in a mussel shell from the Black River. News of the discovery spread, and people flocked to the lakes and rivers, hoping to make a similar find. Makeshift settlements popped up along the rivers as men, women, and children joined the search. Newspapers compared the frenzy to the Klondike Gold Rush. The mussels were abundant, and pearl hunters gathered them by hand in shallow waters. Those lucky enough to find a pearl inside discovered gems in many colors, including white, pink, blue, purple, and black. The pearls were prized by jewelers and some even became part of a royal gem collection.

Single pearls could command a premium price if they met the specifications a jeweler required to form a matched string of pearls or earrings. One Arkansas pearl buyer recalled selling a single pearl to a French jeweler for $1,500. It was the final pearl needed to complete a necklace. The finished string of pearls had a value of $200,000!

The pearl rush also gave birth to a robust shell button industry. In the late 1890s, thousands of mussel shells were shipped by rail from Arkansas to Iowa, where button factories turned them into beautiful mother-of-pearl buttons. By 1900, button factories were operating in Arkansas, popping up along northeastern Arkansas rivers. Factory workers gathered mussel shells and placed them in hot water to open them. They removed the meat, graded the shells, and then cut them into button blanks. By the end of WWII, plastic buttons put most shell button factories out of business.

Overharvesting led to a dwindling mussel population in Arkansas, and by 1905, pearls were much harder to find. Shells were no longer available in shallow waters and pearl hunters relied on boats and special tools like long-handled tongs called pearling rakes to search in deeper waters. About the same time, cultured pearls were also making their way into U.S. markets. A Japanese man, Mikimoto Kokichi, had patented a new process of injecting a grain of sand or ground mussel shell into an oyster, forcing the oyster to form a pearl. Cultured pearl jewelry became popular and much more accessible.

Does someone in your family have a piece of jewelry that contains Arkansas pearls? If you would like to learn more about the Arkansas pearl rush, search Newspapers.com™ today!

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New Papers from California and Kentucky!

Posted on April 26, 2021 by Jenny Ashcraft

We are pleased to announce that we’ve added new papers from California and Kentucky to our archives. If you have ancestors from these states or an interest in the history of these areas, you’ll want to explore these new additions!

The Fresno Bee 7.3.1937 – The Search for Amelia Earhart

Fresno Bee: Founded in 1922, the Fresno Bee is a daily newspaper serving Fresno, California, and surrounding counties in the San Joaquin Valley. The Fresno Bee archive includes the Daily Morning Republican, the Fresno Morning Republican, and the Fresno Weekly Republican, with issues dating back to 1876. In Spanish, Fresno means ash tree, and the city was named in honor of the abundance of ash trees growing in the area. Fresno was a large agricultural area, and in 1876, the city installed the first irrigation system for farmers. Fresno is also a gateway to Yosemite, which was named a National Park in 1890. In 1893, the Fresno Weekly Republican reported that Galen Clark, a pioneer who first settled in Yosemite in the 1850s, ventured outside the park for the first time in 40 years. The Fresno Bee chronicled the growth of Fresno as the population increased and new industries arrived. In 1922, this ad touted a home for sale on a “paved” street! If you have ancestors from Fresno, search for them in birth announcements, wedding announcements, divorce notices, and obituaries.

Lexington Herald-Leader 3.25.1937 – F4 Tornado Destruction

The Lexington Herald-Leader: Located in Bluegrass Country, Lexington, Kentucky, is known for its beautiful horse farms and thoroughbred racetracks. The city also comes with a rich history and the Lexington Herald-Leader has chronicled it dating back to 1888. Our archives also include The Lexington Leader (1896-1982), and The Weekly Leader (1888-1901). The equine industry has played an important part in Lexington’s history. The state quarter and the state license plate both sport a horse, and Lexington claims the title “horse capital of the world.” The childhood home of Mary Todd Lincoln is located in Lexington, and in 1969, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported on a proposal by citizens to preserve the home. In 1977, the home opened as a museum and visitors can still tour the property today. If you have ancestors from Lexington, search this archive for stories about early settlers. You may also find them mentioned in society news, like this 1888 gossip column.

Start searching the Fresno Bee and the Lexington Herald-Leader on Newspapers.com™ today!

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No Matches? 5 Strategies to Try Next on Newspapers.com™

Posted on April 23, 2021 by Karen Lee

Have you ever searched for an ancestor’s name on Newspapers.com™ but not gotten a hit, even though you suspect a match should be there?

There are a few reasons why this can happen: Maybe the person wasn’t mentioned in the paper by the name or spelling you’re searching for. Or maybe our site doesn’t currently have the paper where their name appears. But another possible reason has to do with OCR.

What is OCR?

All the newspaper pages on Newspapers.com have been indexed using Optical Character Recognition (OCR). This means that a computer has tried to identify the words on each page and produce a digital version to search. When the newspaper image is clean and in good condition, this process is very accurate and can make searching papers easy. For older papers or other papers where the image is less clear, the OCR processing may miss words or read them incorrectly.

In the majority of instances, the Newspapers.com Search can correctly locate the names and words you’re searching for—thanks to OCR. However, given the condition of some historical newspapers, OCR has limits as it tries to decipher text from papers dating back as far as the 1600s!

So is it a lost cause if one of your Newspapers.com searches doesn’t return the matches you want due to the idiosyncrasies of OCR?

No! We’ve gathered our top 5 strategies for those occasional times when the OCR can’t identify the name you’re searching for.

1. Substitute letters (and numbers) with similar shapes.

Depending on the newspaper’s typeface and the quality of the image, the OCR might mistake certain characters for others that look similar. The trick here is to make an educated guess about what the OCR thinks it’s seeing and then adjust your search terms to reflect that. This often means substituting letters (and numbers) that have a similar shape.

Common substitutes to try include y & g, b & h, c & e, t & f, l & 1, and s & 8.

Keep in mind that this might extend to multi-letter combinations as well, such as rn & m and rr & n.

So while your ancestor’s name may have been C-a-r-r-i-e Smith, the OCR might read it as C-a-m-e Smith in some instances. Searching for both variations will likely return more matches in your search results.

2. Search with wildcards.

In addition to searching with similarly shaped letters and numbers, you can also try using a “wildcard” to replace a letter (or multiple letters) that the OCR might be misreading.

READ MORE: Learn about using wildcards

Two wildcards you can use on Newspapers.com are the question mark [?] and asterisk [*].

Use a question mark to replace a single letter. For example, if the person you’re searching for has the surname “Johnson” but you think the OCR might be misinterpreting the lowercase h as another letter, you can search [Jo?nson] to return a wider set of results.

Use an asterisk to replace multiple letters. If you think there’s a possibility the OCR may be misreading a multi-letter combination, try searching with an asterisk. For instance, with our earlier “Carrie Smith” example, you can try searching for [Ca*ie Smith] to account for a possible OCR issue.

3. Search without quotation marks.

Although placing quote marks around multi-word search terms is useful in many cases, it can be less helpful when dealing with a potential OCR issue.

Using quote marks around your search terms forces Search to return results for that exact phrase. But if the OCR is misreading one (or more) of the letters in your search terms, searching for an exact phrase may actually cause it to miss a match. Removing the quote marks around your search terms will give the search more flexibility, increasing the chances of finding what you’re looking for.

4. Search for other names or for related terms.

Sometimes when OCR is the issue, you may need to use a different search strategy altogether. If the OCR isn’t picking up a name you’re searching for, instead try searching for the name of someone else who is likely to have appeared in the same newspaper article. For example, when trying to find someone’s obituary, try searching for the name of their spouse, parents, children, siblings, or another relative. While the OCR might have missed the name you were originally trying to find, the odds are good that it will still pick up a different name on the same page.

A similar approach is to search for a word or phrase that might be used in an article about the person, such as the name of an organization, club, or church they belonged to. Then use the Newspapers.com search filters to narrow your results by time and location until you find a likely match.

5. Browse the paper.

As convenient and accurate as Search is on Newspapers.com, in rare cases you might need to browse a newspaper instead. So if a search isn’t locating a match you suspect should be there, determine which newspaper editions seem like the best candidates and then go through them page by page until you find what you’re looking for.

Newspapers.com makes browsing easy as well. Select the “Browse” tab at the top of the site, then narrow by location, paper, and date until you find the issue you want to browse. Once you’ve started reading, use the arrows or film strip at the bottom of the Viewer to move to the next page of the paper.

READ MORE: Learn about browsing on Newspapers.com

We hope you find these strategies and tips useful! If you have any to add, share them with us in the comments!

Get started searching for your ancestors on Newspapers.com™! And follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for more content like this!

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Civil War Soldier and Wife Reunite After 28 Years

Posted on April 15, 2021 by Jenny Ashcraft

Life on the American frontier presented unique challenges, and it was not uncommon for loved ones to lose track of one another as they moved from place to place. In 1889, an unbelievable story made headlines when a Civil War soldier who thought his wife was dead learned that she was alive – and they reunited after 28 years.

Frank H. Hall was born in 1837 in the Netherlands. He immigrated to America and settled in Waukesha, Wisconsin, where he got a job in a flour mill. There he met a young woman named Annie Rivers. Frank and Annie fell in love and married in 1860. Shortly after came the Civil War, and Frank was among the first to volunteer for his newly adopted country. He enlisted in the Illinois 42^nd Infantry Regiment in 1861.

Annie accompanied Frank to the train station and wept as he boarded the rail car that would take him to his Illinois regiment. At first, Frank and Annie wrote letters regularly. In one letter, Annie informed Frank that she had given birth to their son. The Illinois 42^nd fought in several battles including the Siege of Corinth, and the battles of Stones River, Chickamauga, and Missionary Ridge. Annie’s letters became less frequent, and one day, Frank received a letter from a friend in Wisconsin informing him that Annie died.

Darke County Democratic Advocate 1.24.1889

Frank continued to serve, and in 1863, received a discharge in Atlanta for disablement. After recuperating, he reenlisted, serving in the Thirteenth Ohio. For an unknown reason, he served under an alias, Benjamin F. Berkley (possibly because Berkley paid him a bounty to serve in his place). When the war ended, Frank continued to serve in the Sixth Cavalry in Texas. When he finally left military service in 1869, he moved from Kansas to the Washington Territory, to Michigan, and then later Iowa. Along the way, Frank met and married a second wife named Julia Nelson in 1869. Frank and Julia later divorced.

In 1889, Frank decided to return to Waukesha and visit old friends. He hardly recognized the town, but after searching, he found Annie’s brother, Joe. He asked his shocked brother-in-law to take him to Annie’s grave. It was then that Frank learned that Annie was alive and living in the poor house. Joe and Frank immediately went to find Annie. Along the way, Frank learned that the letter he received about Annie’s death was a mistake. It was Annie’s brother who died – not Annie.

When Annie saw Frank for the first time in nearly three decades, she didn’t recognize him. Frank called out to her saying, “Don’t you know Frank, your husband?” Annie rushed into his arms. Frank told Annie that better times were coming, and the next day he collected her things and they moved to Iowa.

Annie didn’t live long after their reunion. She died sometime before Frank remarried for the third time in 1894. Frank spent the last years of his life in the Milwaukee Soldier’s Home. He died in 1916 at age 79.

Have you discovered an amazing story from your family history using Newspapers.com? We’d love to hear about it! Dive into Newspapers.com™ today and begin your search!

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April 2, 1863: The Richmond Bread Riot

Posted on April 1, 2021 by Jenny Ashcraft

During the Civil War, lack of food, money, and supplies created unbearable conditions for women living in the southern United States. Inflation and the lack of supplies left families reeling. Women especially felt the financial pinch and had difficulty providing food for their families. The situation was further exacerbated when the drought of 1862 impacted the harvest. Meager food supplies became even scarcer. The salt needed for preserving meat was also hard to come by. It was imported from the North and generally unavailable, or too expensive to purchase.

Tensions reached a boiling point in the spring of 1863 when civil unrest broke out in cities across the South. The unrest was organized by women, enraged by the exorbitant price of bread. They attacked stores and warehouses, stealing food, clothing, and supplies. The largest of these riots took place in Richmond, Virginia, on April 2, 1863.

In March 1863, a Richmond woman named Mary Jackson began recruiting women to participate in an organized protest. She was the mother of a Confederate soldier and frustrated with the government’s inability to provide aid for her and other women whose men were away fighting. She garnered the support of about 300 women. On the morning of April 2, 1863, Jackson arrived at the market in Richmond. She was a peddler, but that day she brought nothing to sell. Instead, she increased recruitment efforts and began warning men that trouble was brewing. The growing crowd of women began marching towards the governor’s office in Capitol Square, where they were turned away. There are varying reports of what happened next, with some claiming the governor eventually came and met with the women. The angry crowd began marching towards Ninth Street. As the women marched, hundreds began to follow, and the crowd ballooned.

Armed with guns, hatchets, and household implements, the women began to chant “Bread or Blood!” They attacked grocery stores, warehouses, and other businesses, stealing food, supplies, and even fine jewelry.

Soon, Richmond Mayor Joseph Mayo arrived and read the Riot Act aloud to the mob. They ignored him. Governor John L. Letcher sent for Confederate President Jefferson Davis. He begged the women to disperse, warning that an artillery unit would open fire on the mob. Davis then emptied his pockets, throwing his money to the women. Tensions finally eased, and the crowd disbursed.

Rioters take more than bread – The Chanute Times 5.29.1889

Confederate secretary of war James A. Seddon asked the local press to refrain from publishing news of the incident, fearing it would fuel Union propaganda. Confederate deserters, along with Union prisoners who watched the scene unfold from their cell windows, leaked the story. The New York Times published a front-page account of the riot on April 8^th.

Following the riot, more than 60 demonstrators were arrested, including Jackson. The women received varying degrees of punishment. Jackson’s punishment was merely nominal. The City of Richmond increased efforts to provide aid to the poor, restoring a measure of calm. The 1863 bread riots showed just how difficult life had become for women on the home front. If you would like to learn more about the Richmond Bread Riot, search Newspapers.com™ today.

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5 Pioneering Women Doctors You Probably Haven’t Heard Of

Posted on March 16, 2021 by Karen Lee

We searched the historical papers on Newspapers.com™ to find the stories of 5 pioneering women doctors you may not have heard of before!

1. Rebecca Lee Crumpler – First Black American woman licensed as a doctor

Rebecca (Davis) Lee Crumpler (1831-1895) was the first Black American woman doctor, graduating in 1864 from the New England Female Medical College, where she was the only Black graduate.

Rebecca Lee Crumpler graduates from New England Female Medical College 15 Jul 1864, Fri The Aegis & Intelligencer (Bel Air, Maryland) Newspapers.com

After graduating, she practiced medicine primarily in Massachusetts and Virginia, focusing on the care of women and children. She also worked with the Freedmen’s Bureau to provide medical care to the formerly enslaved. She published A Book of Medical Discourses in 1883.

An 1894 piece in the Boston Globe described Crumpler as an “intellectual woman” who “as a physician made an enviable place for herself in the ranks of the medical fraternity.”

2. S. Josephine Baker – First American woman to receive a doctorate in public health

Sara Josephine Baker (1873-1945) graduated from New York Infirmary Medical College in 1898. Her career was largely focused on improving children’s healthcare in underserved New York communities and lowering infant mortality rates. Baker received a doctorate in public health in 1917, the first woman to do so.

Baker became known for her observation (as quoted in the New York Times in 1918) that it was “safer to be a soldier in the trenches in this horrible war than to be a baby in the cradle in the United States.”

S. Josephine Baker 24 Nov 1923, Sat The Star Press (Muncie, Indiana) Newspapers.com

3 & 4. María Elisa Rivera Díaz & Ana “Anita” Janer – First Puerto Rican women to earn medical degrees

María Elisa Rivera Díaz and Ana “Anita” Janer both graduated from the Woman’s Medical College of Baltimore in 1909, making them the first Puerto Rican women to earn medical degrees. Both were at the top of their class, and both started medical practices shortly after graduating.

Their extremely high grades in difficult subjects earned them the 1908 newspaper description of “las más notables estudiantes de medicina en la ciudad” (“the most notable medical students in the city”).

Elisa Rivera and Anita Janer, with fellow medical student Palmira Gatell 25 Oct 1908, Sun The Baltimore Sun (Baltimore, Maryland) Newspapers.com

5. Margaret Jessie Chung – First Chinese American female surgeon

Margaret Jessie Chung (1889-1959) graduated from the University of Southern California Medical School in 1916 and opened a clinic in San Francisco’s Chinatown in the 1920s. She provided medical care not only to the Chinese community, but also to celebrities and other prominent Californians. She became known as “Mom Chung” for the care and support she gave to hundreds of servicemen beginning in 1931.

A 1927 newspaper feature about Chung remarked that “she fought her fight until her achievements have earned for her the reputation of being both a physician and a surgeon of unusual ability.”

Margaret Jessie Chung 08 May 1927, Sun The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn, New York) Newspapers.com

Learn more about these 5 amazing women and many more on Newspapers.com™! And follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for more historical content like this!

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March 18, 1889: The First Carnegie Library Opens in America

Posted on March 5, 2021 by Jenny Ashcraft

On March 18, 1889, the Carnegie Free Library of Braddock opened in a suburb of Pittsburgh. It was the first library donated by businessman and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie in America. From 1886-1919, Carnegie donated more than $40 million to open 1,679 libraries across the country. He also built additional libraries around the world. These libraries were in communities both small and large and opened up a world of learning, entertainment, and possibilities to millions of patrons. Carnegie was a Scottish-American immigrant who made his fortune in the railroad and steel industries. Before the end of his life, he donated nearly 90% of his fortune ($350 million) to various causes.

During the second half of the 19^th century, the idea of “free” libraries began to spread. Carnegie, who was born in Scotland in 1835, immigrated to America as a boy after industrialization forced his father out of the textile business. The Carnegie family settled in the suburbs of Pittsburgh where young Andrew got a job as a messenger boy. There he met Colonel James Anderson. Each Saturday, Anderson opened his personal library and allowed young workers like Carnegie to borrow books. The books opened up a new world for Andrew who vowed that if he ever became wealthy, he would provide this generosity to others.

Carnegie spent the next 50 years building his fortune, though occasionally his methods were scrutinized. He faced criticism in 1892 when workers at his Homestead Steel Mill decided to strike over low wages and better working conditions. The strike spiraled into a violent gun battle requiring a militia to restore peace. One editorial complained, “Ten thousand Carnegie public libraries would not compensate…for the evils resulting from the Homestead lockout.” Some argued that Carnegie built his fortune on the backs of poor workers. Carnegie however, believed that a library was one way that workers could improve themselves. He wanted libraries housed in beautiful buildings, with big windows and ample light. This was a change for many towns that housed makeshift libraries in churches, stables, or at the back of shops.

Carnegie Library in Perry, Oklahoma – 1909

Carnegie devised a plan to award grants for library construction for communities in need. Grants were conditional upon three conditions. First, municipalities had to own the property where the library would be built. Second, the property had to be large enough for future expansion if demand arose, and third, grant recipients had to pay 10% of the gift for building maintenance.

Initially, when an application was approved, a community could build any type of building they wanted. Carnegie felt some of the buildings were not an efficient use of space and later insisted on approving plans before construction began. He even wrote a book, Notes on Library Building, and sent it to each community that received a grant. The standards outlined in the book meant that many Carnegie libraries looked similar. They had high ceilings and spacious interiors. The exterior was often stone or brick. The high ceilings meant that access to the library from street level usually included a flight of stairs. These stairs became a hallmark of Carnegie libraries, and some claimed they represented climbing towards wisdom or working towards knowledge. The stairs, however, proved a hindrance to older or disabled patrons.

By the time Carnegie issued the last library grant in 1919, most states had at least one Carnegie library, while other states had many (California had 142)! Some Carnegie libraries are still in use today. Others are no longer standing or have been converted into civic centers or commercial businesses. Do you have a Carnegie library in your community? To learn more about Andrew Carnegie and Carnegie libraries, search Newspapers.com^™ today!

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New Papers from Missouri and Kansas!

Posted on March 3, 2021 by Jenny Ashcraft

We’re excited to announce that we’ve added new papers from Missouri and Kansas to our archives!

Kansas City Star: The Kansas City Star is one of the Midwest’s most influential papers. The first issue of this Pulitzer Prize-winning paper was published in 1880 and our archives contain nearly 150 years of history from Kansas City, Missouri. The city’s population was just 55,000 when the Kansas City Star began publication. Future president Harry S. Truman worked in the paper’s mailroom in 1902, and American novelist Ernest Hemingway worked as a reporter for the paper in 1917-1918. As one of America’s great newspapers, The Kansas City Star has exceptional coverage of local, national, and international news.

You can learn about the 1887 construction of the Crystal Palace. Built to house the annual industrial exposition, the Crystal Palace contained 80,000 square feet of glass roofing and was among the most amazing buildings in the Midwest. After the expo, the Crystal palace stood vacant until it burned down in 1901. Researchers will find a treasure trove of both historical events and local family history in the Kansas City Star. One news story that gripped the nation was the Kansas City massacre in 1933. Gang members murdered four law enforcement officers and a criminal fugitive they were trying to help escape. The incident took place outside of Union Station and shocked residents. It also led to dramatic changes at the FBI, including new laws that allowed FBI agents to carry guns and make arrests. The Kansas City Star chronicled developments as officials tracked down the perpetrators.

The Wichita Eagle: The Eagle debuted in Kansas in 1884 and aimed to help Wichita become a major commercial center. At the time, Wichita was a busy cattle-shipping point (the city’s early development came from the Texas cattle trade along the Chisholm Trail), and the paper encouraged the diversification of industry. By 1890, Wichita had become the third-largest city in Kansas and the area was experiencing rapid growth.

The discovery of the Mid-Continent Oil Field brought an oil and gas boom to Wichita and The Eagle reported on locals like T. P. Hayes who discovered a gas field under his home in 1912. He used the gas to cook with and heat his home. In 1915, The Eagle reported that a buildup of gas under Hayes’s property led to an explosion in sewers around the neighborhood, and in 1916, his well began spewing oil. By 1918, The Eagle reported that Carter Oil Company had taken control of the Hayes property and drilled a well. In 1960, The Eagle bought the competing Beacon Newspaper Corp. and began publishing the morning Wichita Eagle and the Sunday Eagle and Beacon. In 1980, the two papers merged to form The Wichita Eagle-Beacon, later the name was simplified to The Wichita Eagle. Our archives contain a century of local, national, and international news. If you have ancestors from Wichita, you may find them mentioned in obituaries or stories like this one about a local family reunion.

To explore these new papers from Missouri and Kansas, and other new and updated papers, search Newspapers.com today!

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A Step-By-Step Guide to Newspaper Family History Research

Posted on February 25, 2021 by Karen Lee

14 Jul 1934, Sat The Pittsburgh Courier (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) Newspapers.com

Newspapers can be an incredible resource for family history research. Not only do they have birth, marriage, and death announcements, but they are a valuable source of stories, photos, and more.

If you’re just learning how to use newspapers to do family history research, we’ve come up with a step-by-step guide to help you get started. This guide will help you organize your research before, during, and after your newspaper search!

(Our guide is meant to provide general suggestions to help you organize your newspaper family history research. Be sure to personalize our advice to fit your own research needs. And for help learning about Newspapers.com™ site basics, visit our Help Center.)

Before you get started: Pick one ancestor to research at a time.

We recommend researching just one person at a time to help focus your research and minimize distractions. You will often need to try a variety of newspaper searches to find the ancestor you’re looking for; and when you stick to one person, it becomes easier to keep track of potential searches you want to try.

Tip: If you discover information about another ancestor while researching your focus person, be sure to clip or save that newspaper article and make a note to come back to it when you have time to research that other ancestor.

Step 1. Write down what you already know about your ancestor.

Write down the things you already know about your ancestor. Gathering the known facts will allow you to narrow your newspaper search and help you differentiate your ancestor from other people who have the same name. For example, if you already know your ancestor was born in 1880, you can filter out newspaper matches for their name in the years before their birth, making the number of search results more manageable.

23 Jan 1921, Sun The Nebraska State Journal (Lincoln, Nebraska) Newspapers.com

Facts to write down before you start newspaper research (if you know them) include:

The person’s full name and any known nicknames
Important dates in their life (birth, marriage, death, military service, immigration)
Names of close family members or other key individuals in the ancestor’s life
Locations they lived (you’d be surprised by how many discoveries are made by searching an address!)

Step 2. Consider what you want to learn about your ancestor.

Setting goals and objectives is often helpful in family history research. So before you start searching newspapers, consider what you want to learn about your ancestor. Is their birthdate a mystery? Are you not sure of their father’s name? Is there a family story you’ve always heard and want to substantiate?

Clarifying what you want to find out will help you decide the best way to set up your newspaper search. For example, if your goal is to find your ancestor’s marriage date, you may want to start by searching for a marriage announcement in the Newspapers.com Marriage Index collection.

Examples of things you may want to learn:

Dates of important life events
Locations of important life events
Names of your ancestor or their parents/siblings/etc.
Life stories and anecdotes
The general history of the time and place they were living

Step 3. Choose strategies for how you plan to learn about your ancestor.

Now that you know what you want to learn about your ancestor from newspapers, it’s time to plan how you’re going to find it. This includes thinking about things like which specific newspapers or cities you want to search in first. Though you may need to adjust your strategy as you go along, starting out with a plan in mind will help provide structure and organization to your research.

In forming your research strategy, consider things like:

In which geographic locations am I most likely to find newspaper mentions of my ancestor? (e.g., cities, counties, states, countries)
Am I aware of a local newspaper that my ancestor is likely to be mentioned in?
What year range am I most likely to find my ancestor mentioned in?
What are alternative search terms I might need to try if my first search doesn’t work? (E.g., what are nicknames, alternative spellings, or name abbreviations that my ancestor might be mentioned under?)

LEARN MORE: Tips for searching with name and spelling variations in newspapers

Tip: Keep in mind that people can be mentioned in newspapers in locations you’d never expect and from years long after their deaths. For instance, one young woman was born in West Virginia and died in Idaho in 1893. But her marriage announcement appeared in a Pennsylvania newspaper! Her parents had lived in Pennsylvania before their deaths, and a paper there published news of her engagement.

Step 4. Document (and clip!) what you are learning from your newspaper search.

Once you begin finding newspaper mentions about you ancestor, be sure to document what you’ve learned! It would be frustrating to discover something about your ancestor, only to forget the specifics later because you didn’t document your discovery!

When researching on Newspapers.com, one easy way to document your discoveries is through our clipping tool. If you think you might want to refer to a newspaper article in the future—clip it! Even experienced newspaper researchers sometimes come across a discovery, fail to clip it, and then can’t find it again. (If you find yourself in this situation, you can select “Recently Viewed” in the dropdown box below your username to see the last few newspaper pages you viewed).

You can view all your clippings on your Clippings page (accessible under the “Clippings” tab at the top of our site, or by clicking your username and selecting “My Clippings” from the dropdown box). And if you title your clippings—which we always recommend—you can search for them on your Clippings page, making locating them again a snap. You can even filter your clippings by options such as date or newspaper. You also have the option to adjust the privacy settings on your clippings.

LEARN MORE: How (and Why) to Use Our Clipping & Embed Tools

Discoveries you’ll want to document include:

Names, dates & locations
Stories & anecdotes
Photos
Local/national news events that may have affected your ancestor’s life
Clues that might lead you to further avenues of research

And don’t forget to save what you find to your tree on Ancestry® if you have one!

LEARN MORE: How to save a clipping to Ancestry

Step 5. Reflect on what you want to learn in the future.

When you’ve gone through all your newspaper search results, it’s time to think about what else you can do to learn about your ancestor in the newspaper.

Things to consider:

Are there other names or search terms you might be able to use to find your ancestor?
Are there any parts of your ancestor’s life that need more research?
Is there anything you couldn’t discover now but may want to come back to in the future?
Did any new questions about your ancestor come up as you were researching?
What next steps can you take to discover more about your ancestor?
Has something you’ve learned in a newspaper suggested a non-newspaper record you could search? (e.g., a marriage announcement leading you to a marriage registry)

24 Dec 1927, Sat Honolulu Star-Bulletin (Honolulu, Hawaii) Newspapers.com

Other things to keep track of

Other things you’ll want to keep track of while you do newspaper family history research include:

Citations! Make sure you keep track of where you found your information. Clippings and downloaded PDF images on Newspapers.com come with the newspaper title and date included, but you may want to keep track of this information separately as well.
Tech-y stuff. Did you save all your newspaper downloads in a particular file on your computer? Did you title all your clippings a consistent way so that you could search for them later? Make a note so you’ll remember.

More resources

We hope this guide has been helpful. Family history research is challenging at times, but newspapers can provide richness and depth not available with traditional records!

Here are some of our other family history blog posts that may help you in your newspaper research:

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5 Astonishing Cats That Were Famous 100 Years Ago!

Posted on February 9, 2021 by Karen Lee

Viral cat videos and memes aren’t the only things that create feline celebrities. In the winter of 1920–21, the Boston Post spotlighted more than 30 cats in what it called its “Famous Cats of New England” series.

While some of these cats were more famous than others, all the felines came with interesting life stories—from prowling the halls of state government to sailing on a Navy ship during wartime.

Here are our favorite 5 cats from the series, found on Newspapers.com^TM.

**1. Hindy, the Post’s cat**

Tue, Dec 7, 1920 – Page 24 · Boston Post (Boston, Massachusetts) · Newspapers.com

The Boston Post justifiably began its series with its own office cat, Von Hindenburg. Nicknamed “Hindy,” the feisty cat was a regular feature in the Post’s pages between 1918 and 1923.

From the article:

“He is known by name to millions, while hundreds every week recognize him on the street as the famous Post cat. He receives mail regularly from admirers and detractors. Von Hindenburg is a New England institution.” READ MORE.

2. Mike, Governor Coolidge’s cat at the State House.

Wed, Dec 8, 1920 – Page 7 · Boston Post (Boston, Massachusetts) · Newspapers.com

Mike was a rescue kitten that started off in the boiler room of the Massachusetts State House but soon had the run of the whole building. He even laid claim to Governor (and future U.S. president) Calvin Coolidge’s chair. When a sergeant-at-arms attempted to eject Mike from the State House, one of the cat’s loyal supporters made such a strong argument that Mike got to stay.

From the article:

“Word reached the library [that Mike had to leave the State House]. Down came the librarian in fury. The State House simply could not get along without Mike. Since his arrival not a single book has had to be rebound. No rat or mouse lived long enough to set tooth in the precious tomes that contained the State’s records. Mike had seen to that. Previously hundreds of dollars had to be spent in repairing books. So Mike stayed.” READ MORE.

3. Napoleon, at Angell Memorial Hospital

Tue, Dec 14, 1920 – Page 9 · Boston Post (Boston, Massachusetts) · Newspapers.com

Napoleon was the resident cat at a local pet hospital and was known for visiting the animal patients.

From the article:

“Whether it be a horse, dog, cat, monkey, parrot or squirrel that is ill matters little to the charitable Napoleon. With equal impartiality he visits them all. […] Through every ward he goes; has particular cats and kittens with whom he stays longer times than others. Black ones seem to be his favorites. Hours at a time he sits beside Inky, a little black kitten laid up with a strained shoulder.” READ MORE.

4. Squeak, the typical fireside sphinx

Wed, Dec 22, 1920 – Page 9 · Boston Post (Boston, Massachusetts) · Newspapers.com

While less famous than the previous 3 cats we’ve mentioned, Squeak went down in Lake Boon history one summer when his refusal to be left behind prompted some decidedly uncatlike behavior.

From the article:

“It was [the family dog] Michael’s custom to swim after the canoe whenever Mrs. Hayward paddled out across the lake. Squeak followed only to the shore and stood there looking wistfully out to sea—decidedly out of it. Paddling as usual one morning, Mrs. Hayward looked back to assure herself that Michael was coming along in safety when she descried a smaller series of ripples emanating from a small dark object that was battling manfully with the current. Backing until she was closer Mrs. Hayward recognized Squeak, and at the peril of capsizing pulled the valiant little cat into the canoe, where it rested perfectly satisfied with having gone Michael one better.” READ MORE.

5. Kiltie, who went through three submarine zones

Wed, Jan 5, 1921 – Page 9 · Boston Post (Boston, Massachusetts) · Newspapers.com

Born in Scotland, Kiltie was adopted as a kitten by an American sailor during World War I. He was taken aboard the USS Ozama (a naval mine carrier) and crossed three submarine zones on his trans-Atlantic journey.

From the article:

“Adventure with a big “A” began for the six-day-old kitten from that day. He went through three submarine zones safely. He won the undying devotion of every gob [sailor] on board. Supplies were low and Kiltie remembers well the night when he heard there were only three cans of condensed milk aboard, and that it was to be no plain gob bill of fare, but was to be reserved for the little Scotch kitten.” READ MORE.

Want to read more of the “Famous Cats of New England” series? Search on Newspapers.com!

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