Historical Newspapers - Family History & Genealogy Message Board

Two different sites

susanwmosey — 2013-05-04 15:42:35Z

Hi,
But ancestry.com and newspaperarchive.com are two different sites, with two different subscription lists...
On ancestry.com, go to the card catalog and click on "newspapers and publications" to see what they have.

How can I discover why old Alfred's obit from NewpaperArchives isn't reporting at Ancestry.com

GeneJinSL — 2013-01-22 16:47:10Z

While searching for information about old Alfred Cline died Frostburg, Maryland in 1921, a general internet search returned one news item with the link to NewspaperArchive.com, citing "Cumberland Evening Times, Wednesday, February 09, 1921, Page 9."

Having just finished citing some earlier articles about dear old Alfred from the same-titled news publication in Ancestry's, "Newspapers & Publications," I returned to retrace my footsteps. -- Confirmed I could not link to 1921 articles for that title at Ancestry.com.

Newspaper collections are pretty tricky--same/similar titles but different publishers may mean different rights, etc.--diving down rabbit hole can be frustrating.

Is there a way I can learn if the "Cumberland Evening Times" editions for 1921 are _supposed_ to be accessible via Ancestry.com? More information follows.

From the rabbit hole ...
(1) When I open up a returned item in "Cumberland Evening Times (Cumberland, Maryland)," Ancestry.com displays the "partner information" as NewspaperArchive.com.
(2) When I click on the title at the top of the search screen "Cumberland Evening Times (Cumberland, Maryland)," the source information details return. These details show the source as "Cumberland Evening Times. Cumberland, Maryland, United States Of America. Database created from microfilm copies of the newspaper." Yet more details in "About Cumberland Evening Times ..." reports this is a "fully searchable text version of the newspaper for the following years: 1940-77." (Clearly, 1921 is not included in that description.)

Re: An idea for MORE historical newspapers...

sharlo721 — 2012-09-20 13:57:41Z

Here in Australia we have a free website called trove.nla.gov.au which has lots of historical newspapers scanned from all different parts of the country. The text is searchable but being scanned via OCR often the text is gibberish so Trove allows anyone to voluntarily correct the gibberish into correct text (you can actually see the image from which the OCR has been applied). In this way gradually more and more text is searchable. It seems to work great, initially when I entered my wife's maiden surname it came up with 4 pages of hits now it's up to about 8 and growing. The only disappointment is that it's limited to Australian newspapers - it would great to see this concept extended to other countries. I have used this site to solve countless queries especially through the birth/death/marriage records although the courts pages have turned up a few surprises too.
I would be interested to know if anyone knows of any similar free sites, especially for English newspapers.

Re: An idea for MORE historical newspapers...

sharlo721 — 2012-09-20 13:56:47Z

Sorry, I got the domain address wrong in my previous post - the correct address is trove.nla.gov.au, but of course as I said it's Australian newspapers and records only.

Re: An idea for MORE historical newspapers...

WVa_Memories — 2012-09-20 12:56:36Z

I was looking for a "like" button. Wrong site. I don't know of any sites like that. I hope someone who does will post.

Re: An idea for MORE historical newspapers...

JoMac53 — 2012-09-20 02:07:48Z

I don't mind going through all the hits because I know how poorly OCR works but what I do mind is seeing a list of years for a particular newspaper and when you check into it you find there's only 1 or 2 issues for that whole year! That's so misleading it's shameful.

Re: An idea for MORE historical newspapers...

JoMac53 — 2012-09-20 02:07:38Z

That actually sounds like a good idea! lol

Re: An idea for MORE historical newspapers...

JoMac53 — 2012-09-20 02:07:28Z

I don't think it's a case of a bad search engine, I think it's a case of poor quality and/or low resolution images and the limits of OCR technology.

What they should give us, besides complete runs of newspapers, is the search capabilities that are available at www.fultonhistory.com for fuzzy & boolean searches, etc. That would really help.

Re: Missing newspapers - Does Ancestry remove them?

geisten — 2012-09-17 22:44:07Z

If you are saying that articles uploaded to your Ancestry.com family tree are now missing, you may want to post this problem to the "Member Trees" message board.

Re: Missing newspapers - Does Ancestry remove them?

klluoma — 2012-09-17 16:55:04Z

I'm missing the Johnstown, PA Democrat, which is bad for me because so many of my family are from there. What I started doing with newspapers is from the viewing pane is Save this image> Open> and crop the article out of the whole sheet using MS Photo Viewer. Then I save it as a photo and when I load it up to the person, I add the citation information. Takes me a bit longer, and I had to buy a couple memory sticks, but now the information is there for anyone.

I had almost 200 newspaper records attached to one person (politician) and now they are all gone.

Re: Searching Newspapers

cpl1999 — 2012-07-12 02:04:40Z

You are welcome! Glad to help in any way that I can. Nice to meet you too cousin! I think that 2nd cousin would be right. Ancestry says that your Mom and I are 1st cousins once removed, but I have never understood that!

What information do you know on your Blevins and Van Sickle relatives (your grandfather and father)? I would begin by searching to see if there are other family trees that include them. Census records have been helpful to me. Also, searching for a parallel relative (such as a sibling) can be helpful if you don't have much info because someone may have traced family back through that relative.

Now, a question for you - would anyone have any photo's of Beulah Mobley Blevins siblings? I have searched for a photo of my grandfather, Arthur D. Mobley and have yet to locate one! The photo of Beulah Mobley Blevins and John Jefferson Blevins, Sr. that I have in my Powell family tree were provided by either Vivian or Ruth and passed to me from Sawyer relatives. My Mom looked a little like Beulah when she was younger.

Cindy Landry
e-mail cpL1999@yahoo.com

Re: Searching Newspapers

1_bluecrew — 2012-07-11 16:30:25Z

Thanks for responding. My sister Debbie and myself are hoping to discover who are behind our parents. There's a lot of info behind my grandmother's side (the Mobley's and Sawyers)...however I can find very little behind my grandfather John J. Blevins. I have also been unfortunate in being able to find hardly any info behind my father, Hal Van Sickle....Do you have any sugggestions for me to go search? Any help would be very much appreciated. So I guess I am speaking with my 2nd cousin? Anyway,it's nice to meet some of my family! :-) Liz

Re: Searching Newspapers

cpl1999 — 2012-07-10 02:51:17Z

Hi Liz,

I met your mom, Ruth, her sister, Vivian and Ginger a few years ago when I visted Savannah. All were very nice to me. They shared some family information that they knew of with me.

Ruth and Vivian were 1st cousins to my mom, Bernice Mobley Powell. My mom's dad, Arthur Mobley, Sr., was Beulah Mobley Blevins brother.

The last time that I visited Savannah, I went to the cemetery to see Beulah Blevins & family graves (these were not in Bonaventure but in a cemetery close by).

I will be glad to share what info that I have accumulated on this family.

I should have quite a bit on my Powell family tree on Ancestry.

Cindy P. Landry

Re: Searching Newspapers

1_bluecrew — 2012-07-09 17:50:46Z

Cindy, please contact me. I spoke with Ginger Pendarvis, and she said you and she have spoken, and have met. I am a daughter of Ruth M. Van Sickle, who is a daughter of Beulah M. Blevins....I am interested in finding more info on the ancestry behind my parents. Thank you for any help. Liz Van Sickle

Re: Ancestry.com or NewpaperArchive.com problem?

KennethN57 — 2011-10-30 02:08:43Z

I just signed on for a month to check it out. The newspaper function is worthless. I can't even use Ctrl-F to find my search word in the paper. I have to try and find clues like lines of where it was in the paper to get get context. After this, I will try the newspaper site to see what I can find. I think I've exhausted all of the census data that I need.

News-Palladium (Benton Harbor,Michigan)

Ceilestereale — 2011-06-23 23:06:33Z

Not sure if this is where I should be asking. Need someone with a subscription that can help me with this listing this is all they gave for info on the page. Researching H. R. Broxham, who is one on one image, Harry is on the next and Lizzie Broxham on the last sample of image. I hope to get the rest of the articles if possible.
Thanking you in advance,
Ceileste

Re: Ancestry.com or NewpaperArchive.com problem?

JoMac53 — 2010-07-06 03:24:12Z

I know this is just a work-around but in "old search" you can click on "Ohio" (or whatever state) below the "Search all records" page or on the map, scroll down and click on "view all 169 Ohio Newspapers & Periodicals" (or whatever state), then narrow the years down to those you're interested in, then search each paper in your locality individually. If you don't know the geography of the state, just look it up.

This can probably be done in "new search" too but I don't know the steps. I think the location field in the search box just uses the location as a keyword so it will not help to use it. I sometimes have better luck putting nothing in the name fields and using the first & last names in quotations, like a phrase, in the keyword field.

I know this is a pain and isn't addressing the OP's complaint, and it doesn't make up for missing issues, but it is a way to make the best of a bad situation, and I have found very important pieces of information this way.

Re: Ancestry.com or NewpaperArchive.com problem?

stude66 — 2010-07-06 00:40:25Z

The problem is thatAncestry Corporate will do NOTHING to address the problems with its search feature because - so I have been told twenty or more times - its a Newspaperarchive.com issue.

My beef with Ancestry.com is that they have no problem taking our money, but they refuse to take ownership of teh site defiencies and fix the problems.

Now I see that they are rolling out ANOTHER web site, again, without fixing the "mothership".

Re: Ancestry.com or NewpaperArchive.com problem?

JimLivermoreNY — 2010-06-25 12:29:35Z

I missed the one year anniversary to bump this thread. Still hoping for a fix...

Georgia option for Historical Newspapers

BurgessDonnelly — 2010-06-25 04:08:20Z

This may be old news for some of you, but there is always a "newbie."

For searching old obits and news items for the state of Georgia, especially the greater Atlanta area, try
http://atlnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu/atlnewspapers/search

I've recently found obits and news items unavailable through ancestry.com or newspaperarchive.com, including items before and during the Civil War. No fee, no subscription, but you will have to install the djvu add-on for your browser.

Galileo also has other newspapers for the state of Georgia.

Re: adding as a source to a death

milfall — 2010-05-17 13:52:33Z

Your right. That "r" just keeps getting in there. I'm sure I have done it every time I used it. You are the first to call it to my attention. Thanks.

Re: adding as a source to a death

JoMac53 — 2010-05-17 04:39:32Z

First one I thought was a typo but second one makes me think you're not aware you're typing it that way, so just to bring it to your attention so you don't keep making the same mistake, it's an obit not an orbit. :)

Re: adding as a source to a death

milfall — 2010-05-16 21:57:49Z

thanks.

Re: adding as a source to a death

frostfreedet — 2010-05-16 15:44:58Z

There are many, many such things that are not individually coded to link to a specific type of event.

You'll have to add it manually as a source. Have its URL handy to add in the citation.

adding as a source to a death

milfall — 2010-05-16 15:17:13Z

I recently found an orbit for a member of my family tree while searching historical newspapers. I wanted to save it so I clicked "attach to" to add it as source for that person's death. When I finished the process and went to the profile overview section, the newspaper was not linked to the death, but it was listed in the historical records section of profile. How do I link the newspaper orbit to the death of a person?

Re: Error Processing Image Request

lwonline — 2010-01-27 15:20:43Z

I haven't found why it is doing this for me, but I found it is -only- doing this in IE, which means it is something I need to find in the browser settings. Firefox opened the images just fine. Try a different browser.

Re: Ancestry.com or NewspaperArchive.com problem?

JimLivermoreNY — 2009-12-15 20:11:02Z

"Board Information" for this board reveals this:

"We set up this message board to help gather comments about the Historical Newspapers Collection on Ancestry.com. We hope you will use it to make comments that range from content errors to usability of the viewer/searches - all welcome. We hope to continually improve this collection and we will look to this board to help us in that work."

We who?

Are you looking at his board to improve your collection, Ancestry, or not?

Search feature is down AGAIN

stude66 — 2009-10-26 01:14:47Z

Have been trying for the past two weeks to do searches in the newspaper database (last names that have generated results in the past on Ancestry) and the search function continues to fail.

Re: New York World newspaper

JoMac53 — 2009-07-26 03:57:19Z

I didn't know. Thanks. :)

Re: New York World newspaper

CatherineBiddulph — 2009-07-25 18:28:07Z

You probably already know this, but just in case: a few years of the NY World is available online at the Library of Congress site.

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/newspapers/

Re: Ancestry.com or NewpaperArchive.com problem?

WVa_Memories — 2009-07-24 11:56:21Z

Yes, I do have a problem with it. I only have a three-month subscription with Ancestry.com When it is time to renew, I will be seriously reevaluating.

I look at the census records here but otherwise, I mostly get information from the newspapers. Since I now get that from another sources, the question is, do I need Ancestry.com

At times I look at the family tree information. But most of the data about my immediate family is wrong or incomplete. So.

Re: Ancestry.com or NewpaperArchive.com problem?

JimLivermoreNY — 2009-07-24 10:10:20Z

So, you don't have a problem paying twice to get your information? That IS what I am talking about here.

Re: Ancestry.com or NewpaperArchive.com problem?

WVa_Memories — 2009-07-23 23:16:52Z

I subscribed to NewspaperARCHIVE.com a few days ago and it is great. I have found dozens of obits and articles. The search engine is an absolute dream.

New York World newspaper

JoMac53 — 2009-07-21 04:19:36Z

Does anyone know if the New York World newspaper, which was published from 1860 until 1931, is available anywhere on microfilm?

Thanks.
Jo

Re: An idea for MORE historical newspapers...

WVa_Memories — 2009-07-20 01:46:49Z

I am willing to dig. Once I went through 1400 pages just to ferret out some obits. But it would make life easier if there was a better search engine. This will, no doubt, be deleted. But I just did a one-month subscription to Newspaper Archives and have had amazing results in the first hour.

I was excited to see a new West Virginia newspaper listed and then discovered that there was ONE issue. An historic issue. But, still, disappointing.

Re: An idea for MORE historical newspapers...

WVa_Memories — 2009-07-19 23:36:03Z

The search here is useless. Looking for "Gadd" I get God and good and so forth. Even with a month, a year, and a name, I get dozens of "hits" and wind up with zero.

Re: Ancestry.com or NewpaperArchive.com problem?

JimLivermoreNY — 2009-07-09 12:54:11Z

Sorry, the subject should have read "Newspaperarchive.com".

A monthly subscription at the above site indicates that the missing images are indeed available at the above site.

Ancestry, the ball is back in your court. When will I get access to the images I paid for?

An idea for MORE historical newspapers...

seele01 — 2009-06-24 18:43:33Z

Maybe I am wrong here, because I obviously use and enjoy Ancestry and dont mean to critize it, but I wish ancestry.com had more historical newspapers. I feel there is an easier way to speed up the process.

The reason why I think they do not have many newspapers online, and why they are very slow to being added, is because ancestry.com is trying to scan every newspaper AND digitize the text of each newspaper so the text is searchable. While having searchable newspaper text is very helpful for some people, I feel that it is not a necessity for most genealogists.

Genealogically wise, 80% of historical newspaper research is for obituaties, funeral notices, notices of marriage and marriage license issuance, and birth notices. NONE of these call for the newspaper to be text searchable, as most genealogist looking through old newspapers probably know the birth/marriage/death date of the person being searched for.

Maybe I am outreaching here, but why doesn't ancestry.com hire or send 50 people out to all 50 states State Libraries or Historical societies, and have them take digital images of each microfilm of each historical newspaper? Then have the tech people organise each paper by State, newspaper name, and issue year/month/day, and post them online. This would allow the majority of people on this site to find Obits up the wazzoo! What a great resource that would be!

Ancestry.com could forget the text-digitalization until all of the newspapers are online, THEN start digitizing them from the images that are already scanned (which I am sure is a long and tough process). Believe me, I have spent my fair share of time pooring over microfilmed newspaper, wishing it was indexed (in one case, to find a long lost front page article about my great grandfather), but I feel the digital indexing should be secondary to getting the microfilm scanned. It took a while (3 weeks at the Virginia State Library), but I found that needle-in-a-haystack article. If every historical newspaper were online on ancestry.com, people would NOT mind spending the same amount of time searching. But they can't, if it isn't online, you see?

It would be quite an undertaking, yes, but within a year or two, ancestry.com would blow EVERY other historical newspaper site out of the water, because it would have EVERYTHING. Having the information available and catalogued is much more important that having it easily searchable. Genealogy isn't easy, no matter how hard ancestry.com trys to make it.

Anyway, im rambling, but I hope I have made my point. Maybe I am wrong. I dont mean to offend anyone who works for Ancestry.com, as this is a great site. I just feel Ancestry spends too much time digitally (and manually)indexing stuff...and the time spent doing that would be better spent churning out documents so they are online, and user searchable (even if that user has to spend alot of time finding what he or she is looking for).

Thanks again,

Rob Williams

Re: Error Processing Image Request

degregorio — 2009-06-16 01:22:14Z

The answer is you need to check you antivirus protection settings or possibly firewall. For us it was McAfee Antivirus Access Protection \ Maximum Protection:Protect cached files from password and email address stealers: Action blocked. I unchecked this and we were able to view images that we previously weren't able to view.

Re: Search results problem

WVa_Memories — 2009-06-03 18:03:43Z

The newspaper search is very, very poor. Smith is also one of my surnames. Even with the full name and dates, it will turn up links to the old Snuffy Smith comic strip. Same with less common names. Gadd -- I'll get links to words like gad-about.

And the other day, to give another example, I was searching for Arabelle Martin. I knew there was an obit but I had misread the day of the week and failed to save the image to my shoebox.

Even though I had the name as it appeared in the headline, month and year, I got dozens and dozens of false hits including the want ads, sports pages, etc. Finally I used her brother's name (how I originally came upon the obit) and found it again.

What I generally do is try to find a person's death date from another source, and then go to the newspaper a day or so after and search page by page.

Search results problem

dcsmith — 2009-05-30 02:51:10Z

A search on Melvin Smith with exact checked for both first and last name also gets results for "Sunday".

Re: Search results highlighting

JimLivermoreNY — 2009-05-29 11:41:17Z

You bring up another good point, Donna. If there is a reason to bring up those out-of-area papers, then why are those results NOT highlighted? Very inconsistent in my opinion. At least there is a 'keyword' function, FWIW.

Re: Search results highlighting

DonnaMcCrearyRod — 2009-05-27 06:15:03Z

Yes, the highlighted numbers are a royal pain to me also.

The whole publications search function drives me crazy. I will put in a location very clearly, but the search returns publications from all over the country. Surely this is an easy fix.

Donna

Re: Missing newspapers - Does Ancestry remove them?

DonnaMcCrearyRod — 2009-05-27 06:12:32Z

The Newspaperarchive.com subscription is now $9.99 per month if paid annually --- $17.99 per month if paid one month at a time.

Re: poor search results

WVa_Memories — 2009-05-05 17:45:35Z

The newspapers are one of the best resources on Ancestry.com

But I'm going to have to say ditto regards searching. I've given up using the search function. Even if I have the person's exact name and a year, the search just spews out a bunch of hits that turn out to be misses.

The only way I've found articles is if I know almost exactly which issue they are in. For example, if I know a person's death date, I can go page by page through the paper the day after.

Some examples of misses:

If I'm looking for the last name Vest, it will give me West.

One of my names is Smith. Even with an exact name and a month/year, it gives me things like the Snuffy Smith comic strip.

If I give an exact year, it gives me a bunch of hits that aren't even in hollering distance of the year.

Ancestry.com or NewpaperArchive.com problem?

JimLivermoreNY — 2009-05-03 15:17:53Z

See http://content.ancestry.com/iexec/?htx=Newspaper&dbid=50...

Using my surname 'Livermore', a search returns 85 hits. About hit #36, the 'Newspaper' changes from 'Sioux Valley News' to 'The Sioux Valley News' and all subsequent entries return the dreaded 'Error Processing Request' page. This was reported several times by myself to Ancestry support over the last 3 years.

Who has the problem? And when (if ever) will it be fixed?

poor search results

PriscillaR — 2009-04-30 12:57:23Z

I searched for Frances Lamb in the Colorado Gazette.
The results were for prices of such things as mutton and lamb. I'm looking for people not food!

Re: . Atlanta Constitution, The (Atlanta, Georgia), 1920-present =NOTHING

eGENEee — 2009-03-04 20:32:39Z

Oops! I thought the message was in 2009. It certainly SHOULD be fixed by now! :)

Re: . Atlanta Constitution, The (Atlanta, Georgia), 1920-present =NOTHING

eileenbabbmcadams — 2009-03-04 10:49:35Z

I don't remember now. LOL. It's been over a year.Surely it's fixed by now.

Re: . Atlanta Constitution, The (Atlanta, Georgia), 1920-present =NOTHING

eGENEee — 2009-03-04 04:18:17Z

Which database were you trying? There are four possibilities at ancestry.com:

Historical Newspapers, Birth, Marriage, & Death Announcements, 1851-2003 (includes Atlanta Constitution)

The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia)

Daily Constitution, The (Atlanta, Georgia)

The Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia)

(These cover different dates, too.)

I tried searching for Smith in the second one, and got over 57,000 hits. Maybe the system was "down" when you tried....?