Find My Past is an underappreciated source for digitized newspapers. It is a subscription site that specializes in British and Irish newspapers. Currently, its collection numbers over 98.0 million pages and is growing rapidly. This month, Find My Past added 20 new titles and added to 100 existing titles. They are listed below: New Titles Updated […]
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 9in total. Important Note: These links are to […]
NewspaperARCHIVE, a subscription site, announced its updates for last month. There are 54 New Titles and 37 Titles that have had issues added. There are over 16,000 titles available on the site. A complete list of all of the site’s titles can be found HERE. Below are the titles added or updated this month, with […]
Ancestry.com continues to add or update its record collections at a fast pace for us to search. For the period of November 1-30, 2025, 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 November 1-30, 2025, 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 […]
School census lists, attendance registers, and enrollment logs are among the most overlooked genealogical sources in the United States and Canada. Many survive at the county, district, or state level, often in handwritten ledgers created annually. These records identify children too young to appear in city directories, families who avoided traditional censuses, and movements between […]
This is the first occurrence of a newspaper article about my cousin Gloria Metzner, stage name Gloria Dea. It was published in 1929 in Oakland, California. As you know, I am a newspaper research fanatic, and have recently launched the Newspaper Research Academy, to provide a vast number of resources to those who want to […]
Probate research often begins and ends with a will—but the richest genealogical evidence is found in the probate packet, the full collection of documents created when a court settled an estate. These packets contain dozens of papers that reveal relationships, debts, residences, occupations, land boundaries, social networks, guardianships, inventories, and disputes that never appear in […]
While most researchers focus on the main census columns—names, ages, birthplaces, occupations—some of the most revealing information is found in marginal notes, crossed-out entries, symbols, enumerator comments, and side annotations added during data collection or later review. These scribbles and remarks often explain discrepancies, identify temporary absences, clarify household relationships, or point to additional records. […]
Obituaries are one of the most sought after articles that are published in old newspapers. They can be found a multitude of ways. If you are searching newspapers online, there are several methods to get you to the obituary faster and more effectively. There are thousands of indexes to newspaper obituaries that have been created […]