Researchers often assume that the OCR text displayed by a newspaper database represents the complete article. In reality, many databases index only a portion of the text or create excerpts that end abruptly when a column continues elsewhere on the page. Important details—including names, places, and relationships—may appear just outside the indexed section, causing researchers […]
The record that proves your theory wrong may be the one that leads you to the right ancestor. Every genealogist develops theories while researching. The problem begins when we accept only the records that support those theories and quietly ignore those that do not. Conflicting records are not inconveniences—they are opportunities to discover a more […]
Newspaper columns were often narrow, forcing long names to be split across two lines. To fit the available space, editors and typesetters inserted hyphens or broke names at the end of a line. While human readers usually recognize the continuation, OCR software may interpret the fragments as separate words, making an otherwise obvious surname difficult—or […]
Two people with the same name can quietly become one—and send your research down the wrong family line. Few genealogy mistakes are more common—or more costly—than assuming that two people with the same name must be the same individual. Shared names appear in every place and every time period, especially among common surnames and families […]
Not every name variation found in a newspaper was the result of poor printing, bad handwriting, or OCR errors. Sometimes the individual intentionally used a different name. Actors adopted stage names, authors wrote under pen names, soldiers enlisted under assumed identities, and immigrants occasionally reinvented themselves after arriving in a new country. In other cases, […]
One incorrect family tree can send you and hundreds of other researchers down the wrong path. Online family trees are among the most valuable genealogy resources available—but they are also one of the easiest places to inherit someone else’s mistakes. A tree should be treated as a research clue, not as evidence. Thousands of researchers […]
A woman’s name in the newspaper often depended on the event being reported rather than her legal identity. Social columns, wedding announcements, legal notices, and community news frequently used different naming conventions, making it easy for the same person to appear under multiple names. Researchers who search only one version of a woman’s name may […]
Millions of immigrants arrived with names that were unfamiliar to English-speaking editors, clerks, and readers. Rather than preserving the original spelling, newspapers often translated, shortened, simplified, or anglicized names into forms that seemed more familiar to the local community. As a result, the same person may appear under several different versions of their name depending […]
Ancestry.com continues to add or update its record collections at a fast pace for us to search. For the period of July 1-15, 2026, the new and updated collections are: I hope that some of these are what you have been waiting for! Good Luck and Happy Hunting!
FamilySearch continues to add or update its record collections at a fast pace for us to search. For the period of July 1-15, 2026, the added/updated collections are: For a complete list of all added/updated collections, go to https://familysearch.org/search/collection/list I hope that some of these are what you have been waiting for! Good Luck and […]