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For Researchers, It's Clearly News You Can Use

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By SHARON TATE MOODY, Tribune correspondent

Published: December 23, 2007

Newspapers aren't as important to some folks today as they were before television and the Internet. But if you are a family historian, you can't afford to ignore historical newspapers as a research source.

What can we find in old papers? The list is almost as endless as our imaginations. They contain announcements about births, weddings and deaths. Also valuable are the local and community news sections along with church, school, farm and legal notice sections.

And don't overlook the "real" news on the front page or section of the paper. These stories often relate detailed accounts of local crime, including testimony from high-profile trials. For researchers who lament that the old criminal files are missing or lacking details in the courthouse records, these can be good substitutes.

The account of a trial in Auburn, N.Y., in The Elyria (Ohio) Constitution on Feb. 7, 1878, provided details of a murder, a not-guilty verdict and a wedding rolled into one event. Headlined "Romantic Ending of a Murder Trial," the article related the trial of Edmond J. Hoppin for the murder of Phillip S. Prondtit, who had seduced Hoppin's sister in Sterling, N.Y.

The newspaper reported that Hoppin and his "plucky" girlfriend, identified as "Miss Turner," fell into each other's arms upon announcement of the verdict and how they had arranged to marry "be the verdict good or evil." The wedding party consisted of 12 jurymen, the officers of the court, the sheriff's officers, and relatives and friends.

No mention was made of a marriage license. This illustrates why it is important to remember a newspaper account is not always the most reliable. Some newspapers amounted to not much more than gossip columns, even when reporting hard news. Researchers should keep this in mind when assessing the reliability of the information. If a community or area had more than one newspaper, all should be checked for varied details.

In Place Of Interviews

Entertaining tidbits such as this from the Dec. 14, 1908, issue of the Dothan (Ala.) Eagle can add real human interest to a family history: "The votes for Queen of the Carnival were counted this evening at Knox's Book Store," resulting in "the election of Miss Bessie Whiddon as Queen and the prize as a diamond ring. ... She received 7,756 votes."

Entries such as this are valuable and can take the place of personal interviews with ancestors such as Whiddon, who are deceased. Perhaps the family has talked about the fact that she was a carnival queen, and now you can prove it was more than family lore. On the other hand, if it wasn't an important enough event for anyone to remember, you've captured a bit of forgotten, fun family history.

Internet Only First Step

Locating old newspapers and then getting access to them is the challenging part of the research. While the list of newspapers digitized and available online grows almost daily, the Internet is not the bottom line for these searches. For many, it will be just the first step.

Your research strategy should be to identify the smallest community near your ancestor's location likely to have a newspaper. Then expand to the entire county, nearby towns and cities, keeping small ethnic newspapers in mind where they existed (usually in large cities).

A good Web site to begin your search is by the American Antiquarian Society at www .americanantiquarian.org/newspapers9.htm or the United States Newspaper Program at www.neh.gov/projects/ usnp.html.

Newspaper resources vary for the time and location from which you seek a publication. While many depositories haven't digitized their collections, they do have Web sites to tell you what is in their physical facilities for on-hand research. There is no way to list in this column all the newspaper resources on the Internet, so each researcher must investigate for himself.

Hunting Down Databases

If the Antiquarian Society or newspaper program sites don't produce papers you need, your next research strategy is to seek specific publications. There are several preliminary locations, such as state archives and local libraries, to check. Using a search engine such as Google is the quickest way to find these sites.

For example, I wanted to see what newspapers existed for Dothan, Houston County, Ala. I placed "Dothan library" into the search engine and found the Houston-Love Memorial Library. At that Web site, I clicked on "reference department" and instantly found this facility has the Dothan Eagle on microfilm from 1907 to current date.

I then typed "Alabama archives" in the search engine and found the Alabama Department of Archives and History ( www.archives.state.al .us). The first collection on the home page is "for genealogists and historians." A click there gave me a choice from "databases newspapers, maps and photos."

That search netted 702 choices of newspapers in Houston County. After looking around the site for a few minutes, I determined I could order microfilm through interlibrary loan for $15 a roll or purchase my own for $40. Forms are available on the site for either the loan or purchase. I did a similar search for several states and got the same basic results, so this is a good strategy to use.

If you don't want to pay fees for loan or purchase, many facilities will search and copy newspapers if you can provide a specific publication date. There usually is a small fee for this that varies greatly depending upon the facility.

Visiting these sites and ordering the microfilm requires planning, waiting and patience. If you're willing to purchase subscriptions to databases, you can find a growing digital collection that will delight and amaze you. The three most popular are Ancestry.com, Newspaper Archive (newspaperarchive.com) and Genealogy Bank (genealogy bank.com)..

Newspaper Archive's annual fee is $99, but the site offers a variety of short-term subscriptions such as quarterly for $37.50 and monthly for $16.50. Genealogy Bank requires an $89 annual fee or a monthly fee of $19.95.

The Ancestry.com subscription fee of $155.40 is pricier than the other two but includes more than newspapers. The fee covers the entire U.S. Deluxe Membership, which includes access to all U.S. databases such as the census. Ancestry.com also offers a quarterly membership for $50.85 or a monthly fee of $19.95. Those of you who access Ancestry.com at a library are cautioned that you cannot access the Historical Newspaper Collection through that system.

Compare Before Choosing

If you're going to choose one of these sites for a subscription, visit each site and study closely which newspapers each offers.

As you conduct your family history in general, you should maintain "On Site Research" folders for towns and counties where your ancestors lived. In each, you can list the newspaper microfilm held by the local libraries, archives and other facilities.

When an opportunity to travel comes, you'll have your "research plan" ready to go. If Washington, D.C., is on your list of stops, visit the Library of Congress, which has bound volumes of many original newspapers. You can check their available materials at loc.gov/rr/news/lcnewsp .html.

Sharon Tate Moody is a certified genealogist by the Board for Certification of Genealogists. Send your genealogy questions and event announcements to her in care of BayLife, The Tampa Tribune, 200 S. Parker St., Tampa FL 33606; or stmoody0720 @mac.com. Sh

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