All righty well good afternoon and welcome everybody thank you for joining us today my name is andrew dauphini i’m the instruction and outreach librarian at the new jersey state library it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainis my pleasure to present today’s speaker brian armstrong brian is an independent historian researcher and author who frequently lectures throughout the state on local history he lectures throughout the state on historical topics such as using digital newspapers for genealogical research women’s suffrage and the 19th amendment prohibition world war one the spanish influenza and political history his 2019 book the franklin park tragedy a forgotten story of racial injustice in new jersey won the 2020 njsaa author award and he has a new book published this year called a histories lovers guide to bar harbor maine so welcome brian thank you for for coming and speaking to us today uh before we get started just a few uh housekeeping items to go through um we will be taking questions today at the end of the program but you can submit hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainthem at any time using the questions box on the go to webinar dashboard there is a survey that will be provided at the end of this program as well as in the follow-up email if you can please complete the survey we always appreciate any and all of your feedback um if you’re looking for more information about digital newspapers what’s available in different areas countries how they impact genealogy the family search wiki has a great entry on that the link is there on the slide there but i will send it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainout in a chat so everybody has has a live link please uh if you have a minute take a look at that it’s got some fantastic information in there and one last thing before we get started is just for those of you who might be unfamiliar with go to webinar um this is what your dashboard should look like if you’re using a pc or a mac if you’re using a mobile device your dashboard is going to be looking different depending on which device you’re using but all the features will still be there in the center here you can see all of your audio settings this is where you can check to make sure that your audio devices are working correctly that you have the correct ones uh chosen uh at any time if you have any problems you can use this raise hand button here just hit hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainthat that will alert me i will send you a message and hopefully we’ll be able to resolve everything and as i mentioned before we will be taking questions at the end of the program but you can submit hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainthem at any time you can just use this questions box here type in your question hit hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainsend and we’d be happy to answer that for you so um that is everything that i have for you today so it’s my pleasure to turn it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainover to brian okay good to see you here today i’m going to put my presentation on here just give me a second should come up here okay why am i not okay there we go okay uh good to see everybody here today um what i’m going to be talking about is using digitized newspapers and i’m one of these individuals who have been using newspapers for a long time i they were but originally they were microfilmed and you’d have to go into like musty library basements and and look at web or microphone readers to read them and it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwould take you hours on end to go through it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainuh and i actually took a trip one time in around 2000 to fly up to bar harbor maine to use digitized news or use the newspapers non-digitized and uh you know the information that i got during that trip i probably can get in five minutes today with digitized newspapers it’s just such a different type of thing um just what i’m going to talk about today is an overview of digitized newspapers and the information that you can get from them and the available resources i’m very much extensively you i use them all the time uh i’ve written two books they primarily use newspapers as the main resource for research and they’re a great resource to have looking at newspapers um they’re they’re a second level genealogical research tool i mean some people will say you know you have to kind of look at them in a different way but there’s information in them that you won’t find in any other record newspapers a hundred years ago and even 120 years ago provided a lot of detail on people you know through their gossip columns and other information because it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwas the main source of information for towns and for cities so they’re very valuable they’re fragile because they’re made of paper and so what’s happened as early as the 1930s they’ve tried to microfilm them so that they’re preserved and there’s a lot of great information and they really are a mirror of who we are because most of the towns and cities they would use the newspaper as a way of communicating and it’s very different than the newspapers today it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwas a situation where the information you had in there had to be correct because people would insist on its being correct so what you find is a lot fewer errors in the newspapers a hundred years ago than you would find in papers today the digitizing is a process where they took the microfilmed uh versions and they actually convert them to digitize them which sometimes creates problems because of different types of blemishes like vinegar syndrome and the retox blemishes and tears and these things can mess up the optical character reader which is the ocr and that is the essential thing because that’s the indexing and that’s how you can go in and say search a family name and then you’re able to find the particular newspaper that the name is mentioned in uh and it’s really a great uh resource to use i just did a a a research for someone about a week ago about a particular orchestra that was out there you know 100 years ago and was able to find this information quickly by using the ocr reader for the digital newspaper service i was using and the ocr directly is a much better way of doing it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwhen they’re scanning newspapers today they’re scanned directly so the images are much better and especially the more recent newspapers look beautiful the the scanned versions of them they’re very good um and so the problem is when something is darkened or if characters are lost it’s very hard to read i’ve read so many scanned newspapers where you have to kind of squint your eyes to read the stories but even at that it’s still valuable information the things you can find in newspapers are very important like the obituaries the gossip and events business stories legal records and real estate for the obituaries you get a lot of vitals in there about the families death details family members and friends uh what the jobs the people held where they lived their interests and the pole bearers really usually represent important people in their lives uh gossips and events was something that was really big a hundred years ago you usually had a local person who would be the gossip columnist and they would have just the smallest details about people’s lives would appear in the newspapers even when they went on trips in a car to the town you know nearby it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwas just it’s very fascinating also things on sicknesses if someone had an operation that would be in the newspaper or if they you know various funerals business stories i’m a big business historian and i love the business information that you find in newspapers about founders of companies uh you have company history locations products that they had and services just totally invaluable information especially if you have a relative that was in a business and you might not know much about it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainthese particular ads and business stories can be really fascinating legal records even today the legal records are a very important thing that’s out there and real estate of course is another aspect as well when looking at obituaries this obituary is my great great grandfather’s obituary is the last line in here that was from 1882 and as you can see obituaries back then were pretty simple they just said where you were where you lived you possibly what the cause of death was in your age uh in a very short period of time later you know 40 years later this is his daughter’s obituary and this is in the era which i call the golden age of obituary which was like in the teens and 20s where they had all kinds of detailed information in the obituary especially about how people died and in this case my great-grandmother she dropped dead as she arose from the breakfast table you just don’t find that in obituaries today um and those are the kind of things that you find you also find different kinds of things about different relationships and other things in among the family uh also in obituaries in the 1950s you started having pictures being included and this is a good way to get a likeness of your ancestor that would actually appear in the newspaper and oftentimes they’re pretty good like this one from the 1953.
Gossip events are a big thing that we’re in the newspapers activities weddings sicknesses injuries deaths business actions renovations of houses and if you’re into gardening amazing information about the flowers and trees that people were planting and what they were doing uh graduations and education was a big thing and this is a way that you can figure out um you know when your ancestor graduated from high school or if they went to college because it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwould be in the newspaper this is a particular wedding from the 1960s and it’s just loaded with information about both the bride and groom and their jobs their families just every kind of aspect of their life where they’ve lived where they went to school and then the picture that was associated with it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainis this great deputy do shot from the 1960s where it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainshows a very vintage haircut so oftentimes you’ll find these kind of things in the paper but you can see these lines that are through this these are the kind of things that can really mess up the ocr because if a line comes through a letter or any kind of word it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spaincould completely disrupt the searching employment stories are great because oftentimes you think that employment stories only involve the owner of the business oftentimes they’ll indic they’ll indicate who worked for the business and so if your ancestor was an immigrant that came over and possibly worked at a different place the name might appear in an article uh you know from 100 years ago so it’s a it’s a fascinating way of tracking the life of your ancestor birthday parties were a big deal and this was one in 1900 for gertrude soper from bar harbor maine and the thing that’s unique about this the picture i put in here is just kind of a archival picture uh but if you look at the attendees that were at this particular party which is a 13 year old party it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwas a co-ed party which would have been kind of risque for that era but it’s great because it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainlists all the attendees so you could see whether your relative may have attended a birthday party in 1900 this picture that appeared in the newspaper is just a fascinating picture because it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainshows the family members that were celebrating a golden wedding anniversary and it’s taken inside the house so you actually get a picture of what the house looked like in that era right down to the wallpaper and the pictures on the wall and so i think this is a great way of something from the newspaper that just provides great information on your family day trips were a big deal a hundred years ago if someone got in a car and they drove to the town next door or if they took the cable car there or whatever type of transportation it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainended up being a news story which is just amazing to us today so this is a great way of seeing what your relatives were really doing uh you know in those particular era crime stories were big this is a story that was uh when my great-grandfather had a farm and somebody jumped over his fence and stole some of his apples and so it’s a big detailed story on that and uh and so you get those kind of stories and then i have another story here about my grandfather’s brother who was kind of a juvenile delinquent they nicknamed him endurance vial in the newspaper and he actually robbed his own father’s store filled all the goods up in this little sled that’s at the bottom over here and then drove uh to the next town over ellsworth maine where he was caught in the winter and of course it’s not a very good idea to to break us break into a store anytime but he broke into a store in bar harbor in january 26 where there was snow on the ground so that was pretty uh bad situation uh medical stories turn up in the newspaper all the time and it’s fascinating to to read back about some of the operations that took place over a hundred years ago like appendectomies and different types of kidney operations and things and if there’s any injuries they’re always in there there were a lot of industrial accidents so you could find out if your relative were hurt in some way i actually found a case where one of my relatives was shot because somebody was cleaning their gun and the gun went off and shot him in his house that was next to the other guy so just amazing the kind of stuff you can find in these newspaper articles business stories are just a great resource where opening and closings of businesses fires that took place business overviews advertisements sale or change of ownership this is an ad that was from uh in bar harbor maine from over a hundred years ago and then selling wallpaper and shows the actual amount that it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwas they were charging five cents per roll and where you could buy it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainthe business trips could have people going to new york city they would say so and so made a trip to new york and so you knew that they hopped on a train and came into the station and did whatever business transaction they needed to do this is a story where i had this photograph from the family uh car business which was in south river new jersey and it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwas this collapsed building and then i found an article in the newspaper from 1916 that actually told me when the building was built and what it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwas purpose was for and so it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainkind of gave a great like life story for the photo and sometimes this is what you can find is where you have a photo you can link a story from looking in the newspaper to what the picture is um this is a case of a relative that had a livery stable uh up in bar harbor maine i didn’t really know much about what was provided and what was great is i was able to find out like what kind of services they had they had horses and they had you know various other services that they did concerning horses in the town and carriages and so this is another valuable thing you can find in these ads for your different relatives business that appear in the newspaper this ad is very interesting because it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainhas the date when the business was established which was 1888 it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainsays what the main business is is furniture and then it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainalso shows that these businesses kind of had a lot of side things that they did where this guy’s selling refrigerators baby carriages go-karts china and japanese matting so it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwas a fascinating way of showing kind of the different services that this business had this is a picture i found which was really fascinating and this is my grandfather was a civil engineer and he actually did the sewer system for elmira new york and his picture appears in the paper for doing the sewer system so even if you’re working on the sewer system you could end up being a person in the newspaper fires were a big part of businesses a hundred years ago there were all all types of fires that took place and if it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwas a hotel or a business they would usually list the damage that took place uh what type of products might have been the cause of the fire or or were damaged in the fire and a lot of really good information on the business can be found in these stories about fires legal records of course even today is a very important purpose of the newspaper and back then it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwas as well you can find information on court cases involving your family notices of foreclosure and information about wills especially if the relative had some money they usually had detailed stories about who got what this is an interesting thing that i found in the new brunswick newspaper there was this case where samuel whitehead who’s a prominent member a prominent citizen in south river new jersey there was this case where supposedly his two daughters tried to kill him in a conspiracy and so they had this case at trial and in the paper they list all the testimony and as i read it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spaini was just amazed at hearing how people spoke in like 1970 in 1872 because you hear the way they talked and the different phrases they used and it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwas just a like almost going in a time machine so it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwas very fascinating eventually they were found not guilty and nothing happened from this but it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwas an interesting story nonetheless nonetheless the wills are something that appear in the newspaper this particular relative william m roberts had a great deal of money and there was a lot of information about his estate in the newspaper back in 1929 unfortunately we didn’t get much of it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainin the court cases of that are in here oftentimes you have damaged suits you have libel suits you’ll find people suing people left and right i’m amazed when i look at newspaper articles from the late uh 1800s um how much people sued each other there was just so much active so much legal activity going on desolution of partnerships this is something that happens today and it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainhappened you know 100 years ago and uh it’s also provides a lot of good information sometimes it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwill it’ll include information about when the partnership started you know any aspects about it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwhat the businesses that would come out of the business as it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainsplit hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spaina lot of good valuable genealogical information this is a story that i found in the newspaper that i thought was fascinating my great grandparents had some marital problems and i actually found that my grandfather put this thing in the paper that said that he wanted to give notice that he would not be responsible for his wife’s debts uh as she has left him for the second time and here i always knew that there were issues in their marriage but i this getting this information about that there was actually two times that she left and the turmoil that went on with the paper it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwas another fascinating aspect for the family history this is another notice that i found in the newspaper where this one says whereas my wife emmy sinclair has left my bed on board without just cause i forbid anyone trusting or harboring her on my account as i shall not pay any bills contracted by her after this date so another one of those legal notices that appear in the paper real estate is a important thing that appears in the paper today and it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwas important back in the past you’ll find all kinds of real estate and commercial listings building renovations sales or foreclosures of property all kinds of interesting things can be found concerning real estate these are some typical types of ads that you would find in the paper where properties would be sold and have a lot of detail on the property sometimes listing the buildings and sometimes mentioning prices and other information which could be very interesting for your genealogical search this building uh was a building as a child i used to be on the second floor there and watch the fourth of july parade up in bar harbor each year and what happened was in the 90s they actually tore the building down because it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainhad been the newspaper office there and had been shook for so many years that it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwas unstable they replaced it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwith a great building that’s there now but at the same point i had this nostalgia for it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainand i found this picture of the old building being renovated in 1976 in the newspaper and so this is a great example of sometimes you can find these childhood memories in the newspaper eviction notices appear in the newspaper and this was kind of a common thing uh you know today and not so much today because it’s not much of a published thing but back a hundred years ago if someone was evicted they would put information in there and this is actually the case that my great-grandparents were evicted from their property back in the 1890s and it’s it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwas fascinating to look at the record in the paper on this because it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainshowed that the process took over a year for the eviction to take place and then i just want to mention newspapers what i call the good the bad and the ugly of newspapers the good is when you find something unexpected and you’re looking around and the case for me and this was that i had this photograph from the bottom on the bottom right which is a picture of a birthday party my mother attended and i had no information about what it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwas but then when i went in the newspaper i found an article about her 12th birthday party and in there it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainlinked it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainto this location and so i knew then that this is the actual party that’s being mentioned and then also the newspaper article mentioned the names of all the girls that were actually attending so it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwas another of those great finds that you find by accident that just add to your information on your family history this is another great case where my ancestor david armstrong that had come from northern ireland we thought he was a one-way immigrant that came and i found as i was researching in the paper that he actually went back to northern ireland to visit hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainhis mother who was ill and he went there for a few months back in uh you know late uh 1905 and 1906.
And so this is kind of exciting news because usually you find you think your relative is a one-way immigrant so it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwas kind of a fascinating piece of information to find out on the family history by accident the bad is when you find bad information on your family my great-grandfather over here pictured on the right a haven um was um involved with a domestic incident with his wife where he was actually uh incarcerated in the uh in the uh hudson river state hospital in poughkeepsie which i’ve driven by several times as i drive north and because of this incident which was something that was kind of you know kind of startling i had no idea that this had gone on another case of the bad is we had this family story where my grandfather’s brother supposedly went to the santa tv sanitarium up in saranac lake and when he was there supposedly he had this relationship with a gangster’s girlfriend and the gangster came into the room and shot him in the back as he was fleeing from the window and this is a story that had been repeated multiple times within the family over the years and as i was researching in the newspaper what i really found was he’d actually tried to kill himself because he was despondent from being 18 years old and having tb and he had made up this story to tell my uncle um so that to kind of cover up what had actually happened in saranac lake and the ugly is what i consider when you think the newspaper can solve a problem that you have and you think okay i know if i go to the newspaper and i look at this particular date that the answer to my long-lost question is going to be answered and i’ve heard this from other people that have used you know digital and regular newspapers is they just think that the things should be there and it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainshould be there and i had a case where the family house where my grandfather was born kind of mysteriously disappeared in the 1890s and i thought was it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spaindid it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainburn you know was it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spaintorn down what happened to it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainand i thought the solution would be in the newspaper because if it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainburned all fires were reported and usually if a building was torn down they would indicate it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainin there i found no record and this was very frustrating to me but this is the kind of frustrations you can have sometimes you cannot think that the digital uh archive is going to solve all your problems you just have to kind of take it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwith and think what it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwhat it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spaincan do for you but it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spaincan’t answer all questions and then these are some of the key services that are out there um the newspaper newspaperarchive.
Com is something that i use a service i use all the time as well as newspapers.com and as i’ve as mentioned in the introduction i’ve written a couple books and i’ve used these types of resources extensively because often like my first book there was absolutely no information about the crime that had been committed within other types of sources but the newspapers provided all kinds of detailed information and in my current book on bar harbor a lot of the information that i include in the book use newspapers as a main resource as well because you can find all kinds of details about what had happened you know many years ago through newspaper articles um so this kind of showing you that it’s not just genealogy that you can learn from these sources but if you actually are interested in doing historical writing and i’ve written a bunch of articles as well using newspapers as the main resource these are some other digitized newspaper sources there’s a new jersey digital highway there are the new jersey digitized newspaper site microfilm newspaper list this is if you some of the newspapers are not digitized and you still want to do the old school you know micro uh film reader thing you can do it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainit’s a little difficult but you know if it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainneeds to be done and you have some specific uh idea of when something might be in it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainyou can use it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainand then all digitized newspapers this one site chronicling america i found a lot of fascinating stuff in there as well on different topics it’s a pretty good site and then libraries various libraries kind of support the idea of using digitized resources and these are just some of the libraries in new jersey that have the ability for you to go there and look at digitized you know resources the new brunswick uh public library they took the step even further they’re the big group that was involved with digitizing the home news and the new brunswick times all the way from the 1870s up until about 1930.
And i’ve used that resource extensively it’s also a free resource uh that through the library that you can use and it’s just if you have relatives within that range of new brunswick um south river or east brunswick uh you can just find incredible information about your family in that new brunswick free library resource and this is a wonderful book and i’m not connected in any way on this so if you buy this book i’m you know i’m making i’m not making any money off of it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainit’s a book that i bought and i just thought it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwas really terrific book for those that want to find family history and newspapers and it’s a downloadable book you can download it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainand it’s a valuable resource to help you kind of navigate newspapers for various types of information and then there’s a big project going on in new jersey to try to digitize all the newspapers going back to 1777. there’s been a lot of money going towards that and there’s a lot of the older newspapers are definitely the priority first because they want to make sure that those get copied before they deteriorate and so that’s been an ongoing effort going on in new jersey and then just a little thing about techniques when you’re using ocr you use unique names first and last and you use the business names sometimes what i do is deep searches where if i had like a lengthy name i might search on every aspect of the name or the title because sometimes a part of it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainmight be damaged you know for instance if something lint got on it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainor something when the scan was done so it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainmight be in there and it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainmight not be indexing properly so sometimes you have to use different tricks to find things because the ocr is only as good as what was provided when it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwas actually converted to digital and then non-indexing sometimes what i do is if i have a date or event that i know took place somewhere most of the resources allow you to go search on a specific date for a newspaper and so i’ve done that many times where i don’t use the ocr i actually go directly to the papers and i might scan say a month’s worth of newspapers because i know something took place in may or june of you know 1900 or 1910 and so that’s another way that you can use the digitized sources also what’s nice about them is most of the major ones allow you to download whatever you find some of them are clear i find the newspaper archive their downloads are a little clearer than the ones from newspaper.
Com but they’re all what i do sometimes is i actually go online find what i like and then i use my phone and take pictures of that particular thing that i’m looking at on my computer screen because what i basically want is the information i don’t care what the quality of the image is so sometimes that’s what i do and then um this is i talked about the new brunswick uh times and the home news and this gives you an idea they’re digitized at 400 dpi um you search by keyword and browse by date and then you uh look you look through the different types of things and it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainall depends again on the nature of the microfilm for the conversion some of the newspapers are better sometimes i found that pages were missed which was very frustrating you know you’d look and you’d say oh who did this scanning because uh things were messed up and a lot of this was done back in the 1930s during the new deal some of the jobs were for scanning documents and newspapers so you had people that weren’t exactly you know maybe as motivated at all times to to do a quality job but for the most part most of the images are pretty good and as i was telling someone recently i find the quality usually from the turn of the century uh up until about 1950 pretty good a lot of the bad scanning took places in the 50s and 60s and that’s where you find a lot of stuff darkened and pictures that you can’t read and things like that and so in searching here like for instance elmwood cemetery or george k parsol what you would do is you do boolean searches either you add the plus sign between it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainor you search on one aspect of the name i if it’s a unique name it’s easier to search than if it’s something like george jones it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainbecomes very challenging you know when those kind of common names and then the golden rule rule of all of this is trust but verify i mean newspaper papers make mistake i had an article written about my book about two weeks ago where the woman interviewed me but then put like information i didn’t say in there so i mean you fake news happens so you have to be careful and uh and search out what what’s really in it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainand make sure but i mean the the value is that most of what you find in the newspaper still is is so much more important than the mistakes so whether it’s confused dates and names and things you can sort that out the best you can and to give an example this is my grandfather he had this big moment in 1902 where he had gone to school his entire school career and never missed the day he was never tardy never late and they had this big article in the newspaper and even had a photo of him in it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainand they got his name wrong they call him robert chambers armstrong in the article but down below when you look at the article it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spaincalls him charles chambers armstrong so even 100 years ago or 120 years ago they were making mistakes so you must verify everything you find just to make sure and there’s an interesting story that i found here i want to share with you uh my grandfather had won this award in 1907 for a temperance speech he had made and um what i didn’t know at the time in time until i read the newspaper was he won the contest due to a boil on his neck because what the article said in the newspaper was that he this thing was giving him so much pain that his intensity about temperance became so hot that at the end of the speech the judges just said we must give this boy the award he’s so passionate about this and then later on in the newspaper article he basically you know fessed up and said the reason why i was so you know passionate was i was in dire pain as i was making the speech and then uh that’s the end and i wanted to open this up for any questions uh you know that anybody would have um and again i’ve these are two of the books that i did that i did extensive uh newspaper research on and i can you know provide any kind of questions you might have hey thank you brian um miss if anybody does have any questions please uh send them using the uh the questions box and they go to webinar dashboard we’ve already had some come in then i’ve been uh answering some of them as i can but there are others that i’m gonna leave for brian so which of the resources that you highlighted are free paid subscriptions etc i think you had a couple slides that had some some resources um the newspapers.
Com and the newspaperarchive.com are paid services they’re not that expensive if you’re someone like me that’s does a lot of research but you can find free services like for the new brunswick newspapers you can find them actually through the library for the home news and the and the new brunswick daily news and then the other sites around actually have free services and you can kind of search around and look for the different ones that are available um but most of the really good ones if you really want to get into it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spaini would suggest buying one of the paid services because you’ll find such a higher level of success you know that’s what i you know and what you can do too they do it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainmonthly so you can actually if say for instance you want to do it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainfor one month take it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spaindo it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainand then cancel it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainand i’ve done that before so um you could do that with and i can tell you newspaperarchives.com and newspapers.com are really good sites any other questions hi everyone this is regina brian i i don’t have a question um but i just really quickly wanted to um say andrew posted a couple of links to some of our research guides in the chat one of these is also in your presentation which is the new jersey digitized historic newspapers project and that has a complete breakdown of where you can find all of the new jersey papers that our librarians could find in any sort of digital archive and it’s indicated on this guide whether or not uh the repository is free or if it’s a paid service so that’s a really good resource if you’re looking specifically for a new jersey newspapers in addition i also asked andrew to add the um our newspapers research guide this is different from the digitized newspapers the newspapers guide is a guide to what is in the holdings at the new jersey state library and we do have newspapers our our collection is pretty good mostly for the 20th century although we do have some 19th century um and even 18th century papers but our focus is mostly 20th century and we have newspapers representing 20 of the 21 new jersey counties so just some additional information for the audience yeah that’s uh and some of those uh sources like i know i’ve gone to libraries in new brunswick and other areas where you can actually look at newspapers that are not been have not been digitized like the hundred and county democrat where i grew up in that area that’s not digitized yet and so you actually have to look at the microfilm reader but you can look at those with different libraries they have them available and then also i know like the franklin park library they had certain digitized newspapers that if you went to the library you could uh review for free from the library they weren’t accessible online but they were accessible when you physically went to the library they had you know some digital newspapers available um all right so yes uh is there a regina kind of touched on this but uh is there a global resource to identify digital site records from other states and is it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainfree um i don’t know i know i’ve seen some things online about different newspapers that are out there but you when i go to these paid services you know whether it’s newspapers.
Com or newspaperarchive.com when you search you see all the different papers and it’s amazing the the vast number of papers that were out there i know when i was doing the book on franklin park tragedy um the particular murders were reported in hundreds of papers nationwide and in the archive the newspaperarchive.com they had copies of all those newspapers out there but i think there must be some master list probably on the web of newspapers available but i can tell you you can get them through the paid services um i’m wondering how ancestry’s digitized new paper newspaper search compares to genealogy bank that i’m not so sure on uh i think they at least the way i understand the ancestry one because i’m a person that uses ancestry.com all the time i don’t use the newspaper service because i think it’s primarily obituaries if i’m correct i think is what they focus on um i think the genealogy bank i’m not sure i really i’d have to do more research i can’t really answer that question um what resources would be best for hoboken and jersey city newspapers um hoboken in new jersey okay because i know that like the newark papers are scanned trenton papers are i mean digitized trenton papers are digitized new brunswick i think i remember that there’s a jersey city papers but i think you have to go to the jersey city library for that but i knew i i have heard that some of those newspapers are available hoboken i haven’t really seen any hoboken newspapers listed as being sca being digitized so i would say your best bet the first thing i would do is contact the libraries of hoboken and jersey city because they would be the ones most knowledgeable to know if they have they probably definitely have microfilm versions they may also have digitized versions but they’re ones that are not i can tell you right now they’re not available on the paid services the paid services that i pay for have the courier news they have the trenton times they have the new brunswick and then some i know the newark papers are available through the newark museums like the newark evening news and those those ones are digitized brian if i can jump in uh briefly to talk about jersey city uh so and and i know this from answering uh reference questions if you are a jersey city resident the jersey city public library has a digital archive of the jersey journal however you can only access it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwith your jersey city public library card however uh the library is providing remote reference services i’m not sure about their open to the public hours currently um and you can write to uh john beekman who is the head of the new jersey room and request any uh jersey journal archive searches so if you’re on this car call and you are a jersey city resident this is really great news for you as long as you have your jersey city public library card there is a digital archive but for everybody else you will need to reach out to john but he he is always happy uh to help and they are searching the repository for people have you found more abundant information in some geographies than others yes definitely i mean i would say that when you look at the east coast and the west coast there’s more newspapers available especially the new york uh area there’s so many you know newspapers that are digitized um the boston papers have been digitized i haven’t seen as many philly papers digitized as much i haven’t seen so much of that but uh you know other parts of the country there might be less available um but the thing that’s fascinating about newspapers which i never realized until i wrote the franklin park tragedy book was that so many of the stories were actually kind of exported to other newspapers throughout the country so if an event took place say in new york that story would then be sent probably by wire to ohio or wisconsin or montana and the same story would be reprinted verbatim in those newspapers in that area as well uh it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwas just it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwas a fascinating thing to say but that’s what happened and that that happened you know 125 years ago so it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainhappened consistently with newspapers any other questions digitized newspapers at the new brunswick public library are they accessible only from the library or from anywhere you can do them online i do it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainall the time you go on to their website and you can actually click on there and those records you can access remotely it’s sometimes a little tricky to figure out how to navigate around it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainbut it’s definitely available for free copyright webinar that we had a few weeks ago said genealogy bank is very strict in its usage what about newspapers.
Com is it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainmuch more free and what it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainallows as far as meaning using it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainin a book or or what or what yeah i think it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwould mean yes uh well i i published things in both my books from from uh newspaper archives and you know as long as i gave the proper citation they’re fine with it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainbecause i mean they don’t own it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spaini mean it’s pretty much something that was produced before and it’s it’s a you know it’s a it’s a library um you know resource a resource that’s out there a newspaper so i haven’t run into any problems using it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainas long as i put proper citation about bergen county newspapers specifically inglewood i haven’t really seen anything on that um no i mean i don’t i’m not really sure i think again the thing that i always would tell people is first go to your public library because nobody knows more about your local newspapers than probably your public library would and if they’re available they’d know most likely they would have again first would be the micro uh film version because most of the newspapers have at least been microfilmed um and whether or not they’re digitized is another question usually the bigger cities again like jersey city newark trenton new brunswick those get digitized first and the thing about digitization is they don’t always go deep into the 20th century sometimes they only go as far as the 1930s um but the ones that go you know further on are kind of more interesting because you got a bigger vaster area of information that you have brian if i jump in again i’m sorry i just checked uh the new jersey uh digital newspapers project and the englewood public library has a digital repository for the englewood press and the press herald from 1890 up through um i’m sorry i need to toggle back uh up to 1982.
That’s pretty good that’s a great repository to have that that length of span um any suggestions for finding slaverly related history um that’s something that i’d used a lot with my franklin park tragedy book um you find some references to things um oftentimes you have to look at other records to find things like you know especially like ancestry.com i found some some some you know fascinating records uh one of the in my most current book the bar harbor book um one of the the chapters is on um frederick allen who is an african-american sea captain and i was able to find information in the newspaper about him that had gave me clues then to go to ancestry.com and actually find information on the origins of his parents who ended up being slaves brought over from cuba into louisiana who then eventually fled to pennsylvania so newspapers can provide clues but oftentimes i haven’t seen unless you go back and they actually have like a record of like the transaction that maybe took place but you find better records concerning that in things like wills in um you know other types of listings like manumissions i know that new brunswick has a listing of all the manumissions that took place within the particular county so those are some of the better records on slavery doing historical research about my family’s church in newark new jersey how would i start uh they are still present in the city but forced to move from their original location as.
Far as the church history uh churches tend to end up being mentioned in the newspaper so that would be i would definitely look in there and look at the name of the church oftentimes what happens is they’ll have events that happen at churches they would have listing of changes of ministers especially building projects concerning churches turn up in newspapers your churches is definitely a hot topic in newspapers so i think that’s a good good way of of going in there to one of the search engines and if it’s a particular city i would go to the public library there and see what they have available as far as their digitized newspapers and search on the name of the church some comments from from the previous questions that genealogy bank has the jersey journal from jersey city so you can check that out i’m in the micro the micro film of the the bergen record you have to go to the hackensack library okay uh it’s kind of researching hackensack englewood and irvington what sources would be best to search um i think that probably gets back to what you just mentioned probably the hackensack library is probably the best resource there i would go there and see what they have available um do you know about the family on the cover of your book the franklin park tragedy yes that’s aaron stats in fact i did a profile of the family in the book and he’s the one african-american family that was photographed by the photographer that took photos at that time and his grave is actually in the sole african-american grave in the cemetery that’s along route 27 south of new brunswick uh and it’s actually there’s an area there where the graves are that’s much larger and i believe that that’s actually an african-american cemetery that probably the stones you know were were more fragile and didn’t survive but his stones because he was a prosperous a fairly prosperous farmer that had his own land um that his he bought a much more durable stone philadelphia newspapers from the 18th and 19th.
Centuries would cover mercer and hunterton counties um you said the question is would they which philadelphia newspapers from the 18th and 19th centuries would cover mercer hunter and counties i don’t think they really would because everything was very local at that time if you want things for hunterdon county there’s definitely i know from going in to the library there there’s some older newspapers i think there’s a i think it’s a hundred and county republican or is one of them then there’s a hunter county democrat and there’s a few other local newspapers but i don’t think that you’re really going to find it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainin a philly paper because philadelphia would primarily report on philadelphia stories and the area around there and then mercer county i’m trying to think what the newspaper is for well of course there’s definitely the trenton papers would be for mercer county and the trenton times is one of the digitized papers that’s available that i have definitely uh used as a resource somebody mentioned the philadelphia inquirer had a daily camden news column in the late 1800s oh they did okay that’s interesting i mean it’s possible i know like for instance the uh in living in huntington county there was the flemington speedway and there were like pennsylvania papers that would actually report on the activities of the speedway so i guess there is that regional aspect of it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainthat people would do that if there’s a regional interest i have a quick recommendation for 18th century research in the very early 1900s the new jersey historical society undertook a project where they went through colonial newspapers looking specifically for new jersey’s uh new jersey stories anything related to new jersey and these were published all over in papers all over the 13 colonies this series is called extracts from american newspapers relating to new jersey it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwas published pre-copyright law so all the volumes are digitized we also have it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainat the state library i personally have found it.
Invaluable for doing uh research during that time period um i was stuck trying to find a revolutionary war soldier and instead i found him not at serving as a soldier but committing a murder and there were newspaper articles about uh the murder there was a random article from 1760 and it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwas reported somewhere ridiculous like rhode island about a salem county farmer who got struck by lightning in his barn and this far away newspaper was recording on it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainbut that appeared in there so there’s this really neat mixture of things um and so if you’re doing 18th century research from 1704 to 1780 i highly recommend checking that out and the volumes that tend to be the most digitized online are the revolutionary era ones because of course there are a lot of articles about battles um and things like that so that’s a really great resource and i highly recommend checking it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainout and it’s not again it’s a published volume but the uh project managers basically just took and transcribed all of these articles from the original papers so it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainis the actual it’s it’s been articles they’re just been published for men that’s pretty interesting i had there’s a story i read in the newspaper about this guy that opened one of those dutch doors and he opened the top of it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainand he got struck by lightning in his house so lightning does weird things but yeah that’s an interesting resource you have there it’s it’s fascinating didn’t realize that was available any other questions i’m looking for information about a church fire in the 1900s uh in burlington county i’ve hit hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spaina brick wall where could i find a newspaper for burlington county okay burlington county um again i go back to my litany of talking to the burlington county library would probably be the best thing to see whether it’s been digitized and i know later newspapers in burlington county there’s definitely information that’s available for them because i live in burlington county right now um but anything like that do you know what.
Year it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwas do they know what year it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwas i think it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwas in the the 1900s okay there would definitely be information on it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainbecause things like church fires building fires business fires always got a lot of coverage in the newspaper um so you’ll definitely find it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainin a newspaper i would say that’s probably going to be where they might have a description of what exactly happened you know what caused the fire and what the results of it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainwere we had a bunch of thank yous and excellent fantabulous presentations um you know thank you for all the great resources and sharing of your family’s stories somebody said the burlington some burlington county material is available through newsbank okay yeah things like church fires though that’s that’s something you you would definitely find in the papers there was a lot of coverage and fires were very prevalent i’m actually working on a book that’s uh about new jersey fires and other types of disasters and uh you find so much information you know in the newspapers about that stuff i was surprised just as a side note how many forest fires have taken place in new jersey you always hear about fires in california and other places the pine barrens down this way so many major fires more questions so i think we can go ahead and end it hindi newspaper list, newspaper in spainthere i’d like to thank you brian for a fantastic presentation and sharing all of your the wealth of knowledge you have um thank you again to regina for providing us with some extra resources and and some insights and lastly i’d like to thank everybody who who attended today um this program is being recorded so uh a link will be shared with everybody who registered so look for that in a follow-up email um and i always just like to end with be safe be well and hopefully we can just start seeing everybody soon okay well thank you everybody and i enjoyed it.
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