8.6 Newspapers

Newspapers open the door to a type of research that goes beyond the names, dates, and places on certificates and civil records. A newspaper article generally tells a story, and even advertisements printed in papers can be helpful if they are tied to the life of the research subject. Although predecessors of the newspaper can be traced back to Roman times and modern newspapers were established in different countries between 1600 and 1620, newspapers really became popular in the eighteenth century.1 Newspapers were the internet of the times, connecting people through news articles and stories from around the world. Not only did newspapers cast a wide net by making their readership aware of global happenings, but they became an important mechanism for people to stay aware of and connected to each other in rural, local areas. A curious and well-informed reporter in a small town might report on prom dates, vacations, visiting in-laws, local crops, clandestine romances, church meetings, awards won at the local fair, and other interesting tidbits of information or gossip. Consulting a local newspaper during a research project may give the family historian a personal and interesting look into the lives of the research subjects.

Besides articles and editorials, obituaries printed in newspapers can be a treasure trove for genealogists. Not only do obituaries usually list the birth, death, and burial information, but they describe relationships, often list close kin in great detail, and may even give characteristics with a life history. The list of parents, siblings, spouses, and descendants can be especially helpful. Often this is the easiest place to find the married name of daughters. That information leads to efficient searches for marriage records and opens research in a place where family historians often meet a dead end. Knowing there is a daughter but not knowing her married name makes it difficult to trace her and her new family after she reaches adulthood. An obituary can be the key that allows for documenting her spouse and descendants.

Although more detailed research may be needed, often an obituary can be found using a simple google search of the name of the deceased, the year of the death, and the word “obituary.” If the search is NIL, utilizing services like newspapers.com or newspaperarchive.com (or whichever newspaper archives the researcher’s library subscribes to) may yield results that the general search did not display. There are also individual subscriptions to newspaper archives available for purchase from companies like Ancestry, Storied, MyHeritage, and others. FamilySearch has newspaper collections that are organized by place of publication. Use the catalog in any of the big four websites to access newspaper collections. However, searching may be more effective through a newspaper archive service and many local and university libraries subscribe to them.