Prison and jail records often contain specialized legal and institutional terminology. These terms may appear in commitment registers, inmate case files, court minutes, pardon records, and newspaper crime reports. Understanding them can clarify an ancestor’s legal situation and custody status. Term Definition Admission Register Log recording entry of prisoners into custody. Appeal Request for higher […]
Author: Kenneth R Marks
Kenneth R Marks was born and educated in the San Francisco Bay Area, receiving a BS in Mathematics in 1968. His career was in Information Technology; with the last 20 Years as a software executive with Boeing, Pearson, and NASA. His genealogy career began in 2004. He is an expert in newspaper research for genealogy, as well as additional genealogy topics. He regularly conducts webinars on the subject and has authored three genealogy books. See the About page for more details.
The Ancestor Hunt, founded in 2008, is focused on helping genealogy and family history researchers of all skill levels to achieve their goals, by providing links to free online genealogy collections, and search tips and techniques, largely via easy-to-understand Quick Reference Guides.
Chronicling America, the newspaper collection, is available for online research of United States historical newspapers, and it regularly updates its collection. Here are the updated titles for last month. Some are new titles, and some are added to an existing title’s pages in the database. There are 10 in total. Important Note: These links are […]
MyHeritage continues to add or update its record collections at a fast pace for us to search. For February 1-28, 2026, there are 3 new and 23 updated collections. The new and updated collections are: I hope that some of these are what you have been waiting for! Good Luck and Happy Hunting!
Ancestry.com continues to add or update its record collections at a fast pace for us to search. For the period of February 1-28, 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!
Find My Pastis an underappreciated source for digitized newspapers. It is a subscription site that specializes in British and Irish newspapers. Currently, its collection numbers over 100.3 million pages and is growing rapidly. This month, Find My Past added 19 new titles and added to 32 existing titles. They are listed below: New Titles Updated Titles […]
The British Newspaper Archive, a subscription site owned by FindMyPast, has announced its updates for last month. There are 11 New Titles and 31 Titles that have had issues added. There are a total of over 100.4 million pages available on the site. A complete list of all of the site’s titles can be found HERE. […]
Newspapers.Com is one of the larger subscription newspaper sites. At the date of this publication, they claim over 1.19 billion digitized pages from over 30,000 titles. Here is a list of the new titles from the past month. Canada England Ireland Northern Ireland United States Connecticut Illinois Indiana Michigan Mississippi North Carolina Oregon Tennessee Washington […]
FamilySearch continues to add or update its record collections at a fast pace for us to search. For the period of February 1-28, 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 […]
Background Historical Occupation Profiles explain what ancestors actually did for a living and how those occupations shaped the records genealogists rely on today. Occupation Overview Carpenters were skilled tradesmen who constructed, repaired, and installed wooden structures and components. In the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, carpenters were essential in both rural and urban communities, […]
An ancestor’s place of residence may be documented in many more sources than census schedules alone. The records below highlight where a specific address, township, county, or community affiliation may be stated or strongly implied. Government Records Land and Property Records City and Community Directories Court and Legal Records Military Records Church and Religious Records […]