Newspaperarchive.com

If any of you have been following my ramblings for any length of time now, you might have noticed that I have an affinity for old newspapers. Let's face it, in New York State these fragile old pieces of paper might be the only place that one can obtain a snippet of data on an ancestor that will state their name and put them at a particular place on a given date. This state was not blessed with the wonderful old Town Vital Records program that the New England states and colonies had. Our vital record program did not start, (with a minor few exceptions,) until the 1880's.

You might find births, deaths or marriages listed, or you might find news articles, tax lists, court records, land records, probate announcements, black sheep or angels. So, that being said, even with all the warts, newspapers contain some of the most exciting finds that a researcher can make. "Holy Cow. that's MY ancestor !"

In the early days of my research I used to spend hours and hours, days and days, hunched over with my head in an old metal READEX microfilm reader, with the clank, clank, rattle rattle, and arm and wrist getting as sore as a dart thrower's. However every now and then EUREKA! a fabulous find! In those days you had to know a date or at least an approximate date range in which to pursue your search. Well not so in today's marvelous computer and Internet age.

These old newspapers have been scanned into a digital image format and then software called Optical Character Recognition (OCR) looked at each page and was able to convert the image pixels into text format that now could be read, and more importantly, INDEXED! All words, phrases, topics, locations, subjects, names, etc., etc. are able to be used in your search efforts. That is not to say that the machines don't burp from time to time, or that the OCR might have missed just what you might need, but it is a whole lot better than anything we ever had before and the system as it is seems to find more items than you would ever have a lifetime long enough to locate on your own, the old fashioned way.

You no doubt will chuckle if you have ever searched newspapers manually when you think about the number of times you were side tracked and thrown totally off your subject search by reading the news items of the day. It was a great step back in time, but hard to keep on course.

I have written about several different newspaper resources on my website and blogs, (you can do a search if interested,) but today I want to call your attention to the ever expanding, fabulous and excellent site at www.newspaperarchive.com. This is a fee based site. However, what ever the fee might be if you are a serious researcher you MUST have a subscription. If you consider the alternatives, such as going to a library that might have some few of the films you might need and figure the time and money for travel, parking, meals, photocopies, and myriad other expenses, then the cost of a subscription is indeed a bargain.

You can obtain a free seven day pass to try the service before you buy, after that it will cost you $95.40 per year which amounts to $7.95 a month, or around here about the cost of one day's parking at a library.

Some of the quick and easy things you can do from their website are; obtain a birthday newspaper for yourself or a gift, view special collections, order a professional print of a specific date, (you may print to your own printer as well from the on-line image of course,) see a list of all current newspapers available, see what's new, for instance the following is from today's announcement:

"The Largest Newspaper Archive On-Line. Search 55.5 Million Pages • 647 Cities • 238 Years • 2,419 Titles." (Wow!)

"NewspaperARCHIVE.com is now adding content at a rate of more than 80,000 pages per day - that's roughly one page every second! Below is a list of the latest publications added to the archive and the titles you can expect to find available soon.

Begin your Full Access 7-Day Free Trial and receive content updates in your inbox.

Available 1/14/2007

Title: New York Times, The
Country: United States Of America
State: New York
City: New York
Page Count: 18828
Date(s): 1909

Title: Newport Daily News, The
Country: United States Of America
State: Rhode Island
City: Newport
Page Count: 6473
Date(s): 1846 - 1862

Title: Oakland Tribune
Country: United States Of America
State: California
City: Oakland
Page Count: 14744
Date(s): 1916 - 1928

Title: Northwest Arkansas Times
Country: United States Of America
State: Arkansas
City: Fayetteville
Page Count: 37719
Date(s): 1937 - 1974

Available 1/13/2007

Title: La Crosse Tribune And Leader-Press, The
Country: United States Of America
State: Wisconsin
City: La Crosse
Page Count: 49798
Date(s): 1926 - 1939

Title: La Crosse Tribune and Leader Press, The
Country: United States Of America
State: Wisconsin
City: La Crosse
Page Count: 3618
Date(s): 1938

Title: La Crosse Tribune and Leader-Press, The
Country: United States Of America
State: Wisconsin
City: La Crosse
Page Count: 376
Date(s): 1936

Available 1/12/2007

Title: Independent Record, The
Country: United States Of America
State: Montana
City: Helena
Page Count: 67075
Date(s): 1958 - 1971

Title: Havre Daily News, The
Country: United States Of America
State: Montana
City: Havre
Page Count: 19555
Date(s): 1971 - 1977

Title: Janesville Daily Gazette
Country: United States Of America
State: Wisconsin
City: Janesville
Page Count: 7374
Date(s): 1860 - 1861

Title: Idaho State Journal
Country: United States Of America
State: Idaho
City: Pocatello
Page Count: 5444
Date(s): 1955

Title: Idaho Journal
Country: United States Of America
State: Idaho
City: Pocatello
Page Count: 3158
Date(s): 1956

Available 1/11/2007

Title: Dubuque Daily Herald
Country: United States Of America
State: Iowa
City: Dubuque
Page Count: 6814
Date(s): 1897 - 1898

Title: Dubuque Herald
Country: United States Of America
State: Iowa
City: Dubuque
Page Count: 1411
Date(s): 1895 - 1899

Title: Estherville Enterprise, The
Country: United States Of America
State: Iowa
City: Estherville
Page Count: 237
Date(s): 1927 - 1934

Title: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
Country: United States Of America
State: Alaska
City: Fairbanks
Page Count: 9898
Date(s): 1953 - 1958

Title: Denton Record-Chronicle
Country: United States Of America
State: Texas
City: Denton
Page Count: 3325
Date(s): 1970

Title: Express and News
Country: United States Of America
State: Texas
City: San Antonio
Page Count: 374
Date(s): 1956

Available 1/10/2007

Title: Albuquerque Tribune, The
Country: United States Of America
State: New Mexico
City: Albuquerque
Page Count: 12160
Date(s): 1960 - 1964

Title: Anderson Herald, The
Country: United States Of America
State: Indiana
City: Anderson
Page Count: 28562
Date(s): 1952 - 1955

Title: Billings Gazette
Country: United States Of America
State: Montana
City: Billings
Page Count: 294
Date(s): 1971

Title: Billings Daily Gazette, The
Country: United States Of America
State: Montana
City: Billings
Page Count: 2908
Date(s): 1908 - 1912

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Newspaper Image - Oakland Tribune - Friday, April 5, 1968
Oakland Tribune
Friday, April 5, 1968

"President Johnson today proclaimed Sunday a national day of mourning for Dr. Martin Luther King..."
Try a Full Access Membership Free for 7 Days
Try a Full Access Membership Free for 7 Days


1 Page Added Every Second, That’s Over 80,000 Pages Per Day!"

The following is a list of New York State newspapers that they currently have:

List of New York Locations with Newspapers Available On-line
at www.newspaperarchive.com - by Dick Hillenbrand -
Upstate New York Genealogy - www.unyg.com.

(city or other location) (county)
Auburn Cayuga
Brooklyn Kings
Canandaigua Ontario
Dundee Yates
Dunkirk Chautauqua
Hornell Steuben
Hornellsville Steuben
Kingston Ulster
Lexington Greene
Lodi Seneca
Middletown Orange
New York City New York
Norwich Chenango
Olean Cattaraugus
Oneonta Otsego
Oswego Oswego
Penn Yan Yates
Port Jervis Orange
Salamanca Cattaraugus
Syracuse Onondaga

If you do decide to subscribe, please tell them that some crazy guy at www.unyg.com sent you. I won't get anything for it, but it will boost my ego. \grin/