Category: Resources Page 15 of 17

Don’t Forget Your Local Libraries!

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On 26 January 2015

In Research, Resources

By Raysonho @ Open Grid Scheduler / Grid Engine (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

By Raysonho @ Open Grid Scheduler / Grid Engine (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I volunteer in our local library and sometimes even I forget everything that a library has to offer. And I don’t just mean the usual obituaries or microfilmed newspapers.

Not every library has the items mentioned below but most have a variety of databases for you to search AT HOME by simply putting in your library card number. How amazing is that? Not to mention, just going to the library and asking questions about genealogy or even the town’s history can yield amazing results!

There are two libraries that I happen to be able to be a part of because of how the two libraries divide by township. My township happens to be supported by both places so I am part of my own city’s library and the city next door. I love that.

So, what does that get me? Besides two wonderful libraries to explore of course 🙂

There are many online/computer accessible items I am lucky to have available:

  • Ancestry Library Edition
  • Fold 3
  • Heritage Quest
  • INSPIRE
  • Local paper’s archives
  • World Vital Records
  • American Ancestors
  • Local business groups
  • Digital Sanborn Maps
  • Indiana Genealogical Society
  • Indiana Newspaper Obituaries (from 1994 on)
  • Obituary Index for South Bend Tribune (1913 on)
  • Service Notes in the South Bend Tribune
  • Chicago Tribune Historical Archives
  • New York Times (current and historical)
  • Newspaper Archive

Some of these you actually have to go to the library to use – like the Ancestry Library Edition. But, as I already mentioned, that’s a wonderful idea anyway because SO much can also be available at your local library – old maps, city directories, county histories, and other treasures you may not have heard about. So go to your local library and ask them about their genealogy/local history section! You may be surprised by what that is there 🙂

As an aside, don’t forget to contact your local official about the closing of the ISL genealogy section. EVEN if you’re out of state, you can still contact the head of the Ways and Means Committee. Don’t know what to write?  Amy from No Story Too Small wrote a wonderful post about this and even gives her out-of-state example for a letter to write. Please, write to the representative and let them know how you feel (politely of course)!

Indiana Digitized Newspapers

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On 21 January 2015

In Resources

Indiana has a wonderful collection of digitized newspapers available and there is a lot available for free. In fact, if you are an Indiana resident, you can get access to select newspapers on newspapers.com through INSPIRE, provided through the Indiana State Library!

The Hoosier State Chronicles is the name for Indiana’s Digital Historic Newspaper Program and on their website they mention many places to go to find digitized Indiana newspapers. Here is a rundown of what’s available on the websites mentioned.

Chronicling America

  • 38 newspapers available
  • Word searchable (reads with Optical Character Recognition)
  • Brookville:
    • Brookville American (1858-1861)
    • Indiana American (1833-1861 and 1865-1872)
  • Indianapolis:
    • Daily State Sentinel 1841-1853
    • Indiana State Sentinel 1841-1853; 1845-1851; 1861-1865
    • The Indiana State Sentinel 1868-1895
    • Indiana Tribune 1878-1907
    • The Indianapolis Daily Herald 1867-1904
    • The Indianapolis Journal 1867-1904
    • The Indianapolis Leader 1879-1890
    • The Indianapolis Sentinel 1880-1904
    • Weekly Indiana State Sentinel 1851-1861
  • Jasper:
    • The Jasper Weekly Courier 1858-1922
  • Plymouth:
    • Marshall County Democrat 1855-1859
    • Marshall County Republican 1856-1878
    • Marshall County Independent 1894-1895; 1897-1902
    • The Plymouth Democrat 1869-1941
    • The Plymouth Republican 1878-1901
    • Plymouth Banner 1852-1855
    • The Plymouth Pilot 1851-1852
    • The Plymouth Tribune 1901-1911
    • Plymouth Weekly Banner 1855-1856
    • Semi-Weekly Independent 1895-1897
    • The Weekly Republican 1911-1922
  • Louisville, KY:
    • Ohio Valley Worker: Official Paper of the Federated trades Council of Louisville, Trades and Labor Council of New Albany, Central Labor Union of Jefferson 1904-1904 (only one issue)
  • Winchester
    • Randolph County Journal 1855-1862; 1864-1865
    • Randolph Journal 1862-1862; 1865-67
    • Winchester Journal 1862-1863; 1870-1920
  • South Bend
    • South Bend News-Times 1913-1938
  • Terra-Haute
    • Wabash Express 1841-1861
    • The Daily Wabash Express 1861-1920

Indiana Memory

  • Clicking on the Indiana Newspapers button takes you to the Hoosier State Chronicles website so you need to click on collection list and then rearrange this list to collections by type to find newspapers.
  • It is word searchable or at least it has a search button. However, I had searched words that were in the title or newspaper article and it would tell me nothing was found.
  • Newspapers available:
    • Anderson: Gospel Trumpet-Publications of the Church of God 1881-1922
    • Howard County Newspapers
    • Greentown Gem 1898-1935
    • Greentown Grapevine 1995-2007
    • Muncie Post-Democrat Newspaper –1920’s through the 1930’s
    • Muncie, Richmond, Marion, New Castle, and Anderson: Muncie Times 1991-20?? – served the African American communities of the area
    • Smithville News turn of the 20th century
    • The Dale News 1938–1943
    • The Free Soil Banner 1848-1854 – used by the Free Soil Party in Indiana

 Hoosier State Chronicles Blog and Website

  • Blog
    • The State Chronicles blog has a list of the newspapers you can access freely and tells you were to find them – some in Google, some in the Indiana Memory, some in the Hoosier state Chronicles website and more! Wonderful resource to look through. A lot of the list are repeats of what I have here so I won’t recreate the list.
    • I do highly recommend subscribing to the blog to keep updated on new newspapers that have been added.
  • Website
  • The website itself has MANY titles and these ARE word searchable!
    • Brookville American –  19 February 1858 – 21 December 1860
    • Daily State sentinel –  1 January 1862 – 31 October 1865
    • Indiana American – 7 October 1853 – 25 December 1857
    • Indiana American – 29 September 1865 – 18 December 1868
    • Indiana State sentinel – 4 June 1845 – 29 December 1849
    • Indiana State sentinel – 9 January 1861 – 30 May 1864
    • Indiana State sentinel – 21 July 1841 – 30 December 1852
    • Indiana State sentinel – 6 January 1874 – 26 December 1894
    • Indiana Tribune  – 17 August 1900 – 2 March 1907
    • Marshall County Democrat  –5 November 1855 – 1 December 1859
    • Marshall County Republican – 9 October 1856 – 12 December 1878
    • Marshall County independent – 26 October 1894 – 29 November 1895
    • Marshall County independent – 17 December 1897 – 27 December 1901
    • Plymouth Journal
    • Plymouth banner – 3 March 1853 – 24 May 1855
    • Plymouth weekly banner – 31 May 1855 – 4 September 1856
    • Randolph County journal – 31 December 1857 – 19 December 1861
    • Randolph County journal – 1 January 1864 – 17 August 1865
    • Randolph journal – 11 July 1862 – 26 September 1862
    • Randolph journal – 20 September 1866 – 27 June 1867
    • Semi-weekly independent – 4 December 1895 – 25 April 1896
    • South Bend news-times – 1 July 1913 – 31 May 1921
    • Terre Haute daily gazette – 1 June 1870 – 31 October 1872
    • Terre Haute daily union – 20 June 1857 – 11 January 1859
    • Terre Haute gazette – 1 November 1872 – 18 February 1873
    • Terre Haute weekly gazette – 9 October 1873 – 5 July 1877
    • Terre-Haute daily American – 5 May 1855 – 29 May 1855
    • The Indianapolis daily herald – 1 November 1865 – 30 December 1865
    • The Indianapolis journal – 1 May 1888 – 8 June 1904
    • The Indianapolis leader – 30 August 1879 – 24 June 1882
    • The Indianapolis sentinel – 1 January 1885 – 31 May 1885
    • The Jasper weekly courier – 19 March 1858 – 30 June 1922
    • The Liberty Express 3 March 1916 – 18 February 1921
    • The Liberty Herald
    • The Plymouth Democrat – 9 September 1869 – 29 December 1870
    • The Plymouth Pilot – 16 April 1851 – 7 January 1852
    • The Plymouth Republican – 19 December 1878 – 3 October 1901
    • The Plymouth tribune – 10 October 1901 – 5 January 1911
    • The Plymouth weekly Democrat – 26 January 1860 – 2 September 1869
    • The Terre Haute journal – 1 January 1876 – 7 January 1876
    • The Terre-Haute journal – 6 December 1850 – 22 September 1854
    • The Terre-Haute weekly express – 6 March 1867 – 14 August 1872
    • The Vevay Times and Switzerland County Democrat – 4 January 1840 – 3 December 1840
    • The Winchester journal – 9 June 1870 – 28 July 1870
    • The Winchester journal – 3 October 1862 – 20 November 1863
    • The daily American – 30 May 1855 – 13 September 1855
    • The daily Wabash express – 12 February 1861 – 27 January 1865
    • The weekly Republican – 12 January 1911 – 2 May 1912
    • The weekly reveille – 23 June 1853 – 27 June 1855
    • Wabash express – 23 July 1856 – 23 January 1861
    • Weekly Indiana State sentinel – 10 February 1855 – 2 January 1860
    • Weekly Wabash express – 28 January 1863 – 27 February 1867

 Newspaper.com through Inspire

  • You must be an Indiana resident to use this
  • If you are at a library you shouldn’t need to worry about creating a profile but for searching at home you will need to create one but it’s simple enough.
  • Once you get your username and temporary password, log in and you’ll be at a search page.
    • CAUTION! If you go looking about elsewhere on the site, you have to re-log in to get back to the search page.At least, I did, because I could not find my way back to the search engine page after looking around the site.
    • The screen should look like this after you logged in (and clicked the “click here” button right after log in):
  • 505 Inspire screen
  • Click on newspapers from that list and you’ll go here:
  • 506 newspaper screen
  • Then click on Newspapers.com.
  • This is word searchable.
    • There are 7 Fort Wayne newspapers:
      • Fort Wayne Weekly Gazette 1895-1903
      • Fort Wayne Weekly Sentinel 1875-1917
      • Fort Wayne Weekly Journal 1890-1899
      • Fort Wayne Daily Gazette 1864-1899
      • The Fort Wayne Sentinel 1870-1923
      • The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette 1873-1923
      • Fort Wayne Daily News 1874-1923
    • There are 2 Indianapolis newspapers:
      • The Franklin Evening Star 1912-1919
      • The Evening Star 1920-1946
    • There is one Logansport newspaper:
      • Logansport Pharos-Tribune 1890-2006

It is always exciting to find new resources, especially when the cost is minimal! I do wish more was available on my areas of interest on newspapers.com through INSPIRE, but just having such an agreement between the two is a wonderful edition to Indiana resources.

I plan on doing some research using these newspapers that are available and I’ll post a review on how things went afterwards.

Any Indiana residents want to chime in on other places they have found useful? Or about any of the websites I mentioned?

Michigan Resource: Digital Newspapers

By

On 5 January 2015

In Discovery, Resources

More and more records are becoming digitized, which is a fabulous thing! I love being able to look for items while in my warm and cozy home instead of driving a few hours in this cold snowy weather. Keeping in mind that the majority of my record hunting does involve driving a few hours away or sending letters out, I love when I find resources that allow me to research from home.

Newspapers are a big part of my genealogy work as I get a lot of family information from obituaries and I find it very important to know what was happening in the area my ancestors lived while they were living there. So the Michigan Digital Newspaper Portal is a very exciting resource! It comes from my Alma Mater, Central Michigan University, so I’m also a bit proud 🙂

491 Digital Newspapers

 

Not every newspaper database here is free (nor are all counties/cities represented) but the list will tell you if it’s a free site or a pay site. The pay sites can vary from newspaperarchive.com to genealogybank.com to sites that can only be viewed with a library card for that library.

Either way, this is a great resource to look into. For me, if I find I am looking for papers that can be found here all linked to one place (like genealogybank.com) then I consider getting a subscription to the website. So this is good to see if another subscription would be worth it or not.

 

Also, if you’re interested, Indiana has their own digital site for Indiana newspapers. Again, not every county/city is represented but it’s a great resource to keep for later as it’ll continue being added to – and these are free!

Friday’s Faces and Genealogy News

By

On 12 December 2014

In Friday Finds, Pictures, Resources

481 Ruth Hummel 1944

Ruth Hummel – 1944

I am actually not sure who Ruth Hummel is. This picture looks like it was taken on her wedding day but only her name is on the back, not the man next to her. I’m assuming they were getting ready for the wedding and her maiden name is Hummel, making her one of my grandmother’s cousins. I have to confirm all of that but my grandmother’s father had many brothers and sisters so I have some searching to do.

After I cleaned up the photo a bit to get ready to post, I noticed the two shining spots in the background – a bit creepy but it’s most like Ollie Hummel, my grandmother’s father sitting there as I have seen him sitting in the same spot in other pictures. The shining spots would be the reflection from his glasses. Then to the right, in the doorway, it looks like someone is standing. But I think the bottom part is a chair and the top is a coat hanger with some coats on it (at least that’s what the original picture looks like).

Genealogy News

National Genealogical Society

The National Genealogical Society’s blog (UpFront with NGS) posted some exciting news! Ancestry.com and the University of North Carolina collaborated to create a resource for using family history in the classroom (history classrooms specifically). It’s my dream come true!!! As a history education major with a love for genealogy, I had planned on doing this in my classrooms somehow. I never got the chance to try it though as my English major was all my employers ever saw when hiring me. Either way, I am VERY excited that they are working this into classrooms! I would have LOVED that as a student!

You can find the article and link to the digital textbook here.

Time Capsules

Some of you may have seen this floating around Facebook already but I thought I’d share for those of you who have not. They have found a time capsule buried by Samuel Adams and Paul Revere in a cornerstone of the Massachusetts State House from 1795! They do have an idea of what is inside of it from notes on it, but I can’t wait to see pictures of the reveal! How neat!

To read more about it, check it out here.

RootsTech

I would love to go to this conference but sadly, I won’t be able to make it this year. They did make an exciting announcement on who their keynote speakers will be just recently- Laura W. Bush and Jenna Hager. That would be very neat to hear!

You can read more about the conference and key note speakers here.

Free E-Book for Kindle!

If you have a Kindle and are interested in DNA, there is a free e-book on Amazon just for you! It is free for the next five days so get it while you can!

The book is called Guide to DNA Testing: How to Identify Ancestors, Confirm Relationships, and Measure Ethnic Ancestry through DNA Testing by Richard Hill.

I plan on posting a review of the book once I’ve finished.

Have a great weekend!

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