Digitized Newspapers
Finding old newspapers from your ancestor's hometown has been made easier with the advent of digitized archives.
Wikipedia List of Online Newspaper Archives
However, the process of digitization is not perfect, and the optical character recognition (OCR), or how the computer reads old newsprint, can lead to misinterpretation of letters. Here is an article covering some tips and tricks to bypass some of the possible problems:
- NYS Historic NewspapersContents: Full-text access to New York State newspapers including some in the public domain. 1725-2019.
- U.S. Major Dailies: Historical Newspapers (ProQuest)Newspaper titles covered includes The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and Wall Street Journal.
Contents: Full-text, digitized newspaper articles including full-page views, front-page headlines, classified ads, marriage and death announcements, comic strips, reviews, display advertising, editorials, birth notices, and photographs. - Ethnic NewsWatch (ProQuest)Collects full-text articles from the ethnic, minority, and native press, including top scholarly journals on ethnicities and ethnic studies. Contents include African American, Arab, Middle Eastern, Asian American, European, Jewish, and Native American publications.
Contents: Full-text articles from newspapers, magazines, and scholarly journal. 1990-present; plus historical coverage of Native American, African American, and Hispanic American periodicals from 1959-1989.
