More Newspaper Links Added to Wikipedia Page

I was stunned when I discovered I had not written about new links on the Wikipedia newspaper archives page since last December.  It has been on my list of things to do, but somehow it kept slipping further down the list.  I'm glad I have caught up for a while, at least a little.  This batch has some locations with little available online, such as Kenya and Puerto Rico, plus I personally found the Belvidere newspaper obituary index very useful for my own family research.  If you're researching in Iowa, there are six new archives listed.  And all of these new links are free, just like last time!

• British Columbia, Canada:  The Bill Silver Digital Newspaper Archive on the Vanderhoof Public Library site has three digitized area newspapers.

• Ontario, Canada:  Digital Kingston has a site with newspapers going back to the early 19th century.  It overlaps with Kingston papers in the OurOntario.ca Community Newspapers Collection but has some earlier and some additional newspapers available.

• Ontario, Canada:  Thunder Bay Public Library has several downloadable PDF index files available on its site for birth/marriage/death notices, obituaries, social news, and even some World War I references for 1914.

• India:  The University of Heidelberg has digitized copies of most of the 1781 issues of Hicky's Bengal Gazette, or the Original Calcutta General Advertiser.

• Israel:  Five newspapers have been added to the online holdings of the National Library of Israel, three published in Israel and two in New York.

• Kenya:  Virginia Tech hosts a digital archive of the Kenya Gazette.  Currently the collection runs from 1972–1989; plans are to digitize all issues of the Gazette, going back to the 1890's.

• Puerto Rico:  The Gazeta de Puerto-Rico has been added to the Chronicling America collection.  The date range is 1837–1893, but there are gaps.

• Arkansas:  Index to Benton Courier (Saline County) obituaries from 1930–present, downloadable as PDF files.

• California:  The San Mateo County Genealogical Society has downloadable PDF files with indices of newspaper birth/marriage/death notices and of obituaries (along with indices to various county records).

• Illinois:  The Evanston Public Library has a searchable index for the Evanston Review that currently covers 1925, 1966–1972, and 1999–2004.

• Iowa:   The Appanoose County Historical Society has an online archive of Centerville newspapers.

• Iowa:  The Monroe County Historical Society has an archive of newspapers for Albia and other locations in the county.

• Iowa:  The Museum of Danish America has digitized some Danish-American newspapers and a scrapbook.

• Iowa:  Sioux County has a second historical newspaper archive site, this one through Advantage Preservation.  The coverage is not the same as that through Newspaper Archive.

• Iowa:  Taylor County has an online collection of digitized historical newspapers ranging from 1859–2009.

• Iowa and Missouri:  O'Dell's Abstracted Newspaper Index covers southwest Iowa and northwest Missouri for 1859–2014.

• Minnesota:  The Great River Regional Library has an obituary index for the St. Cloud Times that covers 1928–2013, which is helpful, because the Times itself is available only for recent years via a ProQuest subscription database.

• New Jersey:  An index of obituaries and other death announcements has been created for the Belvidere Apollo/Intelligencer/Apollo Journal (as with many newspapers, the name changed over the years), downloadable as PDF files.  So far the index runs from 1826–1914, and the volunteer creating it plans to finish the entire run of the paper, through 1953.  I am thrilled this index is available online, because my 3rd-great-grandfather Franklin P. Sellers published the newspaper under the Intelligencer name.  The index includes obituary listings for him, my 3rd-great-grandmother Rachel G. Sellers, my 2nd-great-grandfather Cornelius G. Sellers, and a few more relatives.  (Though I unfortunately did not find a listing for Cornelius' step-brother, William/John Mathews.)  I will soon be sending a request for photocopies to the Warren County Library!

• New York:  The Troy Irish Genealogical Society has created an index of death notices appearing in Lansingburgh newspapers from 1787–1895.  It also has an index of death notices collected by the Burden Iron Company in Troy.

• Ohio:  Obituary indices for the Akron Beacon Journal from 1841–2012, downloadable as PDF files.

• Ohio:  The Barberton Public Library has indices to obituaries in four local newspapers, covering 1892–1960.  They are downloadable as PDF files.

• Ohio:  The Huron County library has online birth announcement and obituary indices for the Willard area.  I can't find a way to tell what years they cover.

• Oklahoma:  The Muskogee County Genealogical Society has an index to all deaths that were found in Muskogee newspapers, not just from obituaries and death notices.

• Pennsylvania:  Pennsylvania State University is hosting a 1937–2014 obituary index for the Centre Daily Times.  Many years also have images.

• Pennsylvania:  The Lititz Public Library has a downloadable PDF file with an obituary index for 1877–1998 for two local newspapers.

• Rhode Island:  The Cowl, the student newspaper of Providence College, has been digitized from its beginning in 1935 through 1980, except for 1944–1945 (which I suspect will be added soon).

• Washington:  The Bainbridge Review 1941–1946 has been digitized and made freely available on the Kitsap Regional Library Web site.  The newspaper is significant because its publishers consistently published editorials railing against the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.  The project is also special because volunteers transcribed the articles instead of relying on OCR.

• United States National:  Transport Topics, the national newspaper for the trucking industry (I had no idea there was such a thing), has begun to post archival content free on its site to celebrate its 80th anniversary.

In other newspaper news, there was another sighting of a rare newspaper on Antiques Roadshow. In Charleston, West Virginia, a woman came in with issues of the 1945 Oak Ridge Journal bound in two books.  Oak Ridge, Tennessee was the town created to house people working on the Manhattan Project.  The woman's mother was the editor of the newspaper.  Looking at the paper's listing on Chronicling America, it seems that mostly a few scattered copies are known to exist, and certainly not the entire year for 1945.  As I said when a four-year run of the Confederate newspaper The Family Friend was appraised last year, how do we find this woman and convince her that these papers should be digitized and shared with others?  At least in this situation I think it's less likely she'll be tempted to turn around and sell them.

Unfortunately, I've had a negative experience recently with online newspaper listings.  I read a blog post where someone copied an entire section from the Wikipedia newspaper page, literally word for word — even including the internal Wikipedia links — and wrote about it as though it were their own work.  So many people believe that because something is on the Internet, they can just copy it and not credit where it came from.  Conveniently for the "author", the blog is not set up to accept comments.  Well, if nothing else, I consider this type of behavior a great way to learn who I would not want to work with or trust for research.

Finding Relatives in Probate Files

I wrote yesterday about the new presentation on probate records I recently created.  Probate is the process of validating someone's will and distributing his belongings according to his wishes, or showing there is no will (or no valid will) and dividing the belongings according to the applicable laws in that place and time.  Probate files can be fantastic sources of family information.  I always try to get every record I can find in my research, but sometimes the reason that finally prompts me to spend the money on a probate file may be unusual.  The reasons I ordered two of the most informative probate files I have received was less for the normal genealogical ones than to find out if someone's story was true.

In the first situation, I had been told by more than one relative that my grandfather's older sister was not a very likeable person.  In particular, my grandmother told me that when her father-in-law (my great-grandfather) died, he left only $1 to this sister and the rest of his estate to the other siblings.  I had been curious about the truth of this story for several years, but Kings County (Brooklyn), New York wanted $70 (!) for a copy of the probate file, and that was a tidy sum for me ten years ago.  But I saved my pennies and finallly splurged on the order.

When I received the packet, the first thing I read was the will.  I discovered that my grandmother had exaggerated a little, but the story was substantially true.  In the first section of the will, my great-grandfather left bequests of several hundred dollars to five of his six children, but to Sarah he left only $25.  The next section consisted of bequests to many social and benevolent organizations.  He also left some money to be spent on a new tombstone for his own father's grave in Kamenets-Litovsk, Poland, which was valuable information.  The last section of the will stated that the remainder of the estate was to be divided equally among all of his children — except Sarah.  So it was true — even he didn't like her.

In addition to learning that the story was true and where my great-great-grandfather was buried, the other valuable information came from when the will was actually probated, or proven, and the assets distributed.  One of the bequests in the will had been to my great-grandfather's sister, still in Europe.  I didn't have her correct name prior to this (my great-aunt was wrong on both first and married names).  Unfortunately, she predeceased him, because she stayed in Europe during World War II and perished during the Holocaust.  Her inheritance was divided among her six surviving children, who were listed by name with their addresses, four in Israel and two in Buenos Aires, Argentina (which also finally gave me names for the "cousins in South America" I had heard about from my mother and a cousin).  After all these years I'm still trying to find information about the South American cousins, but I have managed to obtain contact information for two of the cousins who went to Israel.

The second probate file that gave me a huge boon was for my stepsons' grandfather.  I had been told that each of his children should have had an inheritance of about $2 million, but one daughter kept filing against the estate saying that she didn't owe for a loan she had received from her father, and all the attorneys' fees ate into the estate to the extent that everyone received only $200,000 instead.  I decided I wanted to know if that story was true, so I requested the file from Los Angeles County.  (That was entertaining in and of itself, as the file ended up being more than 600 pages and the order was processed in about five stages.)

Again, the basic gist of the story was true.  The sister in question did make multiple claims that she did not owe for the loan.  The executor made a counterclaim each time.  Lots of paperwork, lots of hours racked up by attorneys.  She ended up having to pay the money back into the estate, but the process had to have whittled the estate down.  I don't know if the value of the inheritances would really have equaled $12 million, but the estate included many properties around the Los Angeles area, so it's plausible.

But the true gold in the file was, again, the list of heirs with addresses.  I had been trying to track down the half-sister in the family with no success.  There she was in the list, with her address.  (Everyone's children were listed also!)  Surprisingly, the address was only half an hour from where I was living.  Even more surprising, she still lived there, although the probate file was 24 years old!  I showed up at her door one day and introduced myself.  We had a lovely three-hour talk, and the information she gave me helped me track down the famous Hollywood cousins in the family.

Not everyone has intriguing stories to try to prove, but probate files can help almost everyone by supplying names, family relationships, and more.  If you haven't used them yet in your research, order one soon.  Look for probate records at the county level, at the superior court in most states.

IAJGS Conference Wrap-up: Days 5 and 6 (only a little delayed)

As always, I had the best of intentions.  I was going to work on this post while I was waiting in the airport to return to California on Friday, and it would be all finished by the time I got back, so all I would need to do is upload it.  But apparently I looked suspicious when I was going through security at the airport, and I got the full-blown, take-you-to-the-side-room inspection.  They kept me so long I was in danger of being late for boarding my plane.  And when I did arrive, I was sucked back into my regular schedule immediately.  But there were some pretty good sessions (and no duds!) the last two days of the IAJGS conference, and I wanted to share the information.

The most interesting session for me from the final two days was the presentation on Newspapers.com (but then again, I am the newspaper queen).  I have had some real frustration working on this site, so I was hoping there would be good information.  The speaker, Peter Drinkwater (who mentioned that he used to work for Footnote.com before it was bought by Ancestry), did a thorough job of going through the entire site, showing ways to search, options that are available, and generally explaining things very clearly.  Newspapers that are on Ancestry were brought over to Newspapers.com, but they will also stay on Ancestry.  Newspapers.com has added many more papers and has some larger newspapers, such as Atlanta Constitution, Chicago Tribune, New York Times, and San Francisco Chronicle, albeit only for the years 1922 and earlier (the public domain years), but that makes the site a more approachable option then the ProQuest databases, which are institutional subscriptions only.  While most of the newspapers are from the United States, a smattering of papers are from Canada, the UK, Ireland, and Panama.  The newspapers on the site are scanned with OCR; Drinkwater did a good job of explaining how that works and the fact that the search database is just a big bunch of words.  One nice thing about the site is that you can register directly for a free account, with no need to give them a credit card number for a trial and then cancel.  Registering gives you better search results than if you search without signing in.  Another feature is that if you do have a subscription and later cancel/don't renew it, any clippings you have saved to your profile are still accessible.  Drinkwater invited attendees to submit suggestions of newspapers that the site could add and mentioned that they prefer to work with microfilm rather than printed newspapers, the latter being much more expensive to image digitally.  One think Drinkwater couldn't explain, however, was the decision to use so much space on the site to show the top half of a random issue of each newspaper in the list of newspapers available.  (As a side note, one of the attendees was someone who also does presentations on newspapers, though less focused on teaching others how to use them effectively; she mostly talks about her own family stories.  She made snide remarks throughout the presentation.  Near the end she commented about getting too many "false positives" when she did her searches, but amazingly enough Drinkwater was not able to replicate those results when he used her search term.)

We had a two-fer on Thursday and Friday.  Oleksiy and Nadia Lipes, a husband-and-wife research team from Ukraine, gave presentations on the types of Jewish genealogical records available in Ukrainian archives and on how documentation of Ukrainian pogroms that occurred between 1917–1921 can be used in genealogical research.  Some of the document types they showed examples of in the first session were metrical and rabbinical records, business reports, Soviet registration documents, census/revision lists, householder lists, tax books, refugee letters, passports, and notarial documents, and several types of documents related to pogroms in the second session.  So the good news is that lots of documents of many different types are available.  The bad news is that most of these are not indexed, so any research can take a long time.  But there is a wealth of information in the archives.

Other speakers I heard were Joel Spector, who showed the growth of the Jewish population in Russia by analyzing data through the 1897 census; Rony Golan, who talked about how to communicate better with Israeli researchers and relatives (in great measure to help promote next year's IAJGS meeting in Jerusalem); and Mike Karsen, who volunteered to help a friend tie up a loose end in his family research and ended up spending several few months tracking a woman acquitted in a Chicago murder trial across the country and through several marriages.

Oh, yeah, and my talk on searching for maiden names was on Friday morning. :)  I was pleasantly surprised that I had about 40 people attend my presentation.  I figured between my talk being in the last time slot on the last day of the conference, and the scheduled tour of Ancestry.com happening at the same time, I was going to have half a dozen people show up.  But everything went well, attendees asked some good questions, and someone suggested an excellent resource I'll add to the presentation the next time I give it.  So it was a great finale for the conference.

I don't think I'll be able to go to next year's conference, unfortunately; it's probably a little more than I can afford.  I hope everyone who attends has a great time, though.  I'm thinking ahead to 2016, when the conference will be in Seattle.  That's just up the West Coast from me!

Earlier commentaries on the conference:
Days 1 and 2
Days 3 and 4

Journals, Journals, Journals!

Reading genealogical journals is a wonderful way to learn more about history, techniques, records, and family stories, all of which can help you advance their research.  I really enjoy being the editor of three journals.  It gives me incredible opportunities to read fascinating stories, and I learn something from every submission.  But it does keep me busy!

I was a little behind schedule (again!; I have to stop getting sick), and the most recent issues of all three journals ended up being published in less than a month.  While I'm catching up on the intended publishing schedule, I realized I hadn't told everyone about the articles in these issues.  So now I'm caught up on that also!

The March 2014 issue of The Galitzianer actually went out in late May (oops!).  In addition to the outpouring of information in the research column, the issue also includes articles about efforts to preserve Jewish history in Bolechów, how Jewish refugees from Galicia ended up being stateless after World War I, how someone learned his mother's original given name and then visited the site of his uncle's former hat shop in L'viv, and some of the revelations learned during twenty years of research into a family.  (I am catching up on The Galitzianer, and the June issue should be out in July.)

The May 2014 issue of ZichronNote went out the first week of June (pretty close!).  The president's column took a strong stand on an issue affecting almost all Jewish genealogical societies.  Other articles discuss a World War II refugee camp created in upstate New York, the discovery of a long-lost relative still living in Israel (just in time, as it turned out), genealogy resources available at the Portuguese Fraternal Society of America, and a report from the SFBAJGS treasurer on how the society spent its money in 2013.  (The August ZichronNote should definitely be out on time.)

The Spring 2014 issue of The Baobab Tree just barely squeaked in on schedule (hooray!), because summer didn't officially start until June 21.  The lead article is a stunning example of using traditional genealogical research, oral history, and DNA to piece together a family history reaching back to the 17th century.  The rest of the issue includes articles about newly freed slaves in Indiana enrolling in Freedmen's Schools, a personal retrospective on Black History Month, and a mystery photo taken during the fire after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and the popular Genealogy 101 column's take on the federal census.  (I"m going to try to get the next Baobab out in July; keep your fingers crossed.)

The only bad thing about these great journals?  You have to become a member of each society to receive a subscription.  If these article descriptions have piqued your curiosity, visit Gesher Galicia (for The Galitzianer), the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society (for ZichronNote), and the African American Genealogical Society of Northern California (for The Baobab Tree) to join and get your copies today!

New Links on the Wikipedia Newspaper Page

Last week I had the pleasure of attending a presentation by Dr. Henry Snyder, who was the driving force behind the creation of the California Digital Newspaper Collection.  It was fascinating to hear the lengths he went to in collecting old newspaper collections to be digitized.  So I'm dedicating this newspaper update to him.

The latest additions to the Wikipedia page are a wide-ranging lot.  I'm happy to report that all of these new links are free!

• Canada:  The Oxford County (Ontario) Library has birth, marriage, and death indices for three Ingersoll newspapers, ranging from 1854–1970.  One of the newspapers has scanned images; the other two have transcriptions.
• France:  Information Juive (1948–1977) is a Jewish newspaper that has been added to the National Library of Israel site.  It's also listed under Israel.
• Hungary:  Helyi Lapok ("local cards" seems to be the literal translation) has newspapers from Esztergom and Pápai ranging from 1854–2007 (nonconsecutive years).
• Israel:  The Palestine Bulletin (1932–1950) was added to the National Library of Israel online collection of newspapers.  I have also cross-listed newspapers in the collection that were published in other countries under those countries, which created entries for Algeria, Egypt, and Morocco.
• Poland:  Der Moment is a Jewish newspaper that was published in Warsaw from 1910–1924.  It's another new addition from the National Library of Israel and is listed under Israel also.
• Russia:  Ha-'Am (1916–1918), published in Moscow, is also from the National Library of Israel.
• Illinois:  The Chicagoan (1926–1935) was a magazine modeled after the New Yorker.  The online collection is almost complete; if you happen to have one of the missing copies, I'm sure they'd like to hear from you!
• Oregon:  Four newspapers from The Dalles ranging from 1861–1948 have been added to the Historic Oregon Newspapers collection.
• Oregon:  The Northwest Heritage Index at the Wilsonville Public Library lists people and places, mostly from Clackamas County and other Oregon locations, and includes more than 16,000 obituaries from Canby newspapers covering more than 100 years.  The entire database has about 20,000 entries, and plans are to add more material.
• Virginia:  The Prince William County Public Library has digitized several newspapers from 1721–1986 (nonconsecutive years).
• Multistate:  Since Google changed the search interface for its News Archive, the archive hasn't been anywhere near as useful as it used to be, simply because it's harder to find articles.  I've updated the link to one that gives a listing of all the newspapers available through the archive.  The new link also has a basic search capability.

This isn't online, but it's an interesting item.  BBC is planning a drama about a World War I trench newspaper called The Wipers Times.  A British regiment found a printing press and created the newspaper to entertain themselves.  And "Wipers" was the way the British pronounced the Belgian city of Ypres.

Latest Updates to Wikipedia Newspaper Page

These latest additions to the Wikipedia portal page for online newspaper archives have been posted:

• India: portal to newspapers and journals (mostly free) relevant to Indian research
• Israel: two new newspapers on the National Library of Israel site
• Russia: Tikva, an Odessa Jewish newspaper; the Starosti archive, an interesting collection of transcribed articles from 1901–1913 from multiple papers; and Old Gazette, another site with transcribed articles, from at least 1926–2010
• Massachusetts: The Jewish Advocate archive now goes to 1905
• Missouri: The American Jewess, published 1895–1899
• USA Multistate: Newspapers.com, the new site from Ancestry.com, including a link to the list of newspapers on the site (which is unfortunately alphabetized by name of newspaper and not sortable any other way, and each entry has a huge graphic, making the page far too long)

What interesting articles have you found in your newspaper research?

Recent Updates to Online Newspaper Archives Page

I posted recently about the Wikipedia page for online newspaper archives, a portal with links to other sites with digitized newspapers, abstracts, and indices.  I just completed another round of updates and additions to the page:

• Israel: updated the list of digitized newspapers on the National Library of Israel site
• Missouri: updated the list of available newspapers on the State Historical Society of Missouri Digital Newspaper Project page
• Washington State: added newspapers on the University of Washington Library site, including four student newspapers and the Pacific Fisherman Journal (nope, not kidding, it's real!)
• General USA: added many links to ProQuest newspapers that allow purchase of individual articles.  Most ProQuest databases are for large institutions, but these newly added links allow consumers to access content from home.  Almost all of them are for more recent content, but that can also be helpful in family history research.  In addition, five new states were added to the U.S. list, plus Guam now has an entry.

And remember, since this is Wikipedia, if you find an online newspaper archive that is not listed, you also can contribute to this growing resource.  If you don't want to get involved with Wikipedia, send links to me and I will be happy to add them to the page.

Learn How to Use the Bilingual Search Engine for IGRA's Database

The Israel Genealogy Research Association (IGRA) has an All Israel Database (AID) section of its site with information from the Ottoman, British, and Israeli administrations.  Most databases are in Hebrew, some are in English, and a few are in other languages.  Records are presented in their original languages.

In July, at the IAJGS International Conference in Paris, IGRA was awarded a Stern Grant to develop a bilingual search engine for its Web site to improve access to the databases.  The new search engine was announced on December 15.  The search engine can understand both English and Hebrew and will show matches in both languages even if you enter the name in only one language.  All material has been transliterated so that the search engine can identify results.  There is even a virtual keyboard if you do not have a Hebrew keyboard.

The search has several filter options, including record type, database, source, repository, and administration era.  The default language for the page is Hebrew, but you can click on the "English" button at the top right and it is immediately translated.  Different databases have different permission levels.  Some are available to everyone, while some are only for paid IGRA members.  More records are still being digitized and added to the databases.

Obviously, there's a lot to learn here.  Luckily, IGRA is offering a free Webinar, "Navigating the All Israel Database Search Engine", in English (which is good for me, because I don't understand Hebrew!).  The Webinar will be broadcast January 13, 2013 at 10:00 a.m. PST/1:00 p.m. EST/8:00 p.m. Israel.  Register at https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/180663814.

My thanks to Garri Regev, IGRA president, for posting this information.

Effort to Return Passports to Owners

The Central Zionist Archives and the World Zionist Organization have in their holdings original passports from several countries and continents.  They and the Jewish Agency for Israel are now trying to return those passports to the original owners or their descendants.  The site is in Hebrew. If you do not read Hebrew (like me!), you can use Google Translate to read it (here it is in English) and the lists of names, which are downloadable PDF files.

Documents Discovered in Brooklyn Basement

In 1890 a travel agency named Modern Tours opened in Manhattan, owned by a man named Isaac Berman.  He apparently advertised to the local Jewish community for helping people immigrate to the United States, along with transferring money and making loans.  At some point he moved Modern Tours to Brooklyn.  His brother David was a partner in the business.

At the beginning it probably was a legitimate business, but in the 1930's and 1940's something changed.  An 8-year-old boy recently discovered boxes of documents in his grandparents' basement in Brooklyn.  The boxes contained hundreds of passports, immigration documents, and requests for more documents from people in war-torn Europe and Mandate Israel, wanting to immigrate to the United States, all sent to Modern Tours.  But during the 1940's people began to complain that they were sending their money and not getting results.  It looks as though Mr. Berman continued to solicit business and accept payments but he was no longer following through on processing people's requests.

The documents are now in Israel, though I can't tell where.  I have had to rely on Google Translate to be able to read this story, which was published in Hebrew.  It seems from the translation that information is being sought on what happened to Isaac Berman, and perhaps on the people whose documents have been found.  Google Translate does what it can, but it is not the same as a professional translation.  Perhaps someone can read the original Hebrew and give us more information.