Earlier, we spotlighted the US: Newspaper Records course as part of the My Favorite Course blog series. Are newspapers your favorite genealogy source? Here’s a tip from the course.
The website Chronicling America is a repository of select digitized newspapers covering the years 1836-1922.
But Chronicling America offers more than digitized newspapers. Chronicling America is an online resource that can be used to identify newspapers in a particular area and time period. Each listing provides details about the newspaper, such as dates of publication, frequency, and language, as well as what repositories hold either original or microform versions of the newspaper.
Chronicling America is based on records created during the US Newspaper Program that ran from 1982 to 2009. To use this resource, visit Chronicling America and click on the button that says “US Newspaper Directory, 1690-Present.” You can browse by newspaper title using the letters at the top (e.g., clicking on the letter “C” will list all the newspapers that begin with the letter “c”). Alternatively, you can search for newspapers in a particular state, county, or city, using the corresponding drop-down menus, and further limit the time period by selecting a year range. There are other search options such as keyword and language. You can also search by ethnicity or occupation to find specialty newspapers. When you find a newspaper of interest, you can view the record for more details, such as frequency of publication, dates of publication, and alternate titles. To see a list of repositories that have the newspaper, click on the link “Libraries That Have It” at the top of the record.
To learn more about newspapers and where they can be found, register for the US: Newspaper Records course.