Searching for people is one of our primary goals in searching old newspapers. There is an art to finding as many results as we can, beyond the limitations of OCR. The problem is that most people went by many names: initials, shortened names, maiden names, and of course nicknames. Nicknames were often "assigned' when a person was a child or young adult and they then appeared in a newspaper rather than the actual given name of the person. These names are different than name abbreviations, such as Wm for William or Eliz for Elizabeth. These were often assigned by the typesetter to save space, rather than the author of the newspaper article. Billy or Liza would be nicknames in this example. Below is a link to a Quick Reference Guide that provides some examples of common nicknames and their associated given name. To obtain the one-page Quick Reference Guide pdf for easy reference, you can view or download it by clicking on the link below. ![]()
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Performing research with online historical newspaper collections is a challenge unto itself, especially considering that the source material (sometimes over a hundred year old newsprint) creates an unreadable index. But another challenge is sufficient downloading of a "found" article or page that you wish to keep. Unfortunately, the software suppliers provide different ways to download the article or page that you want. Below is a link to a Quick Reference Guide that provides what you need to consider before you download, so that you can read the article or page that you downloaded, and also find the article again in the future.. To obtain the one-page Quick Reference Guide pdf for easy reference, you can view or download it by clicking on the link below. ![]()
There are over 1,100 newspapers that have been published in the Mountain State - certainly not all of them are searchable online. But there are several that are indeed available. So go for it - find articles about the events, history, and people that capture the stories of West Virginia.
Please note that I have not always entered the dates that are included in the collections, as I suspect they will change as more items are digitized. Also I suspect that some of these links may change over time - so if there is a dead link - please use your favorite search engine to find their new location. (Updated July 2021; recently added links are in BOLD) Statewide Collections: Chronicling America – West Virginia Newspapers
Mercer County Mercer County – Princeton Public Library
Mineral County – Potomac State College Mary Shipper Library
Ohio County – Ohio County Public Library
Alderson-Broaddus College – Philippi Bethany College – Bethany Bluefield State College – Bluefield Concord University – Athens Davis and Elkins Colege – Elkins Fairmont State University – Fairmont Glenville State College – Glenville Hampshire High School – Romney Marshall University – Huntington Ohio Valley University – Vienna Potomac State College – Keyser Shepherd University – Shepherdstown University of Charleston – Charlestown West Liberty University – West Liberty West Virginia State University – Institute West Virginia University – Morgantown West Virginia University Institute of Technology – Beckley West Virginia Wesleyan College Newspapers – Buckhannon
Miscellaneous Collections and Indexes: Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Newspapers 1933-1942
Southern School News Archive The Olden Times – West Virginia Newspaper Abstracts – West Virginia Other Free Sites: Harpers Ferry Martinsburg Wheeling There are over 2,000 newspapers that have been published in the Constitution State - certainly not all of them are searchable online. But there are several that are indeed available. So go for it - find articles about the events, history, and people that capture the stories of Connecticut. Please note that I have not always entered the dates that are included in the collections, as I suspect they will change as more items are digitized. Also I suspect that some of these links may change over time - so if there is a dead link - please use your favorite search engine to find their new location. (Updated July 2021; recently added links are in BOLD) Statewide Collections: Chronicling America – Connecticut
Fairfield County Weston Library
The Farmington Libraries
Scoville Memorial Library
East Hampton Public Library
Ansonia Historical Commission
Stonington Historical Society
Amity Regional High School – Woodbridge Berlin High School – Berlin Central Connecticut State University – New Britain Charter Oak State College – New Britain Connecticut College – New London Fairfield University – Fairfield Glastonbury High School – Glastonbury Mitchell College – New London Northwest Catholic High School – West Hartford Post University – Waterbury Quinnipiac University – Hamden Sacred Heart University – Fairfield Sacred Heart University – Fairfield Southern Connecticut State University – New Haven Staples High School – Westport State Normal School at New Haven Trinity College – Hartford University of Bridgeport – Bridgeport University of Connecticut – Storrs
University of New Haven – West Haven University of St. Joseph – West Hartford Wesleyan University – Middletown Western Connecticut State University – Danbury Yale University – New Haven Miscellaneous Collections and Indexes: Manchester Historical Society
The Olden Times – Connecticut Newspaper Abstracts – Connecticut Other Free Sites: Bethany Bridgeport Hartford New London Norwich Waterbury Wilton Windsor When searching old newspapers, there are some things you should try (Do's) and things that you shouldn't try (Don'ts). Pat attention to this list and you will be much more successful:
DON'T - Ever. Give. Up.
People often are recorded in old newspapers with a nickname instead of their given name. There are countless examples; often used are Bill for William, Jack for John, Liz for Elizabeth, etc. Make sure that you not only search for "William Jones", but also with a given name, such as Bill, Will, or Willie. You will get lots more results. Here is a list of common ones.
Give it a try. You will be surprised how many more search results that you get! Everyone who has searched newspapers online will fail to find something. It happens incredibly often.
I have often heard researchers say “I can’t find a single article about a person or an event, even though I have searched for hours!” Laying competency aside as a factor, the biggest reason is that scanning of one and two hundred year old newspapers, either from paper or from microfilm, produces way less than optimal results. More importantly, one must know that searching through an index created by humans who have read the source material and then typed the index is far superior to having a machine/software scan and process a dusty old newspaper. Yet the massive size of newspaper collections prevents the creation of the index manually. You must expect inferior results and set your expectations accordingly. Please take a look at the following list, and hopefully some of these errors and anomalies will provide you with some hints to overcome them and actually find what you are looking for. There are many others – but these are ones that I have personally experienced:
So don’t be discouraged by “lack of results” from doing online newspaper searches. You just need to “outsmart” OCR and try various combinations to get to those elusive ancestors. Be persistent. A crowdsourcing example that I personally have used is that of correction on the actual online newspaper site, such as the aforementioned California Digital Newspaper Collection. In this example, registered users can provide edited text that is then incorporated into future searches. Kind of like a newspaper-related “pay it forward.” This capability is provided on that site and many others from the fine folks at DL Consulting who created the software used by the California collection as well as many other online newspaper sites. For many more details about scanning, OCR and related subjects please read an old article that is very informative - Analysing and Improving OCR Accuracy in Large Scale Historic Newspaper Digitisation Programs, from the March/April 2009 publication of D-Lib magazine. Good luck – be persistent and have reasonable expectations. |
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