About Tom Kemp

Thomas Jay Kemp is the Director of Genealogy Products at GenealogyBank. Tom Kemp is an internationally known librarian and archivist – he is the author of over 35 genealogy books and hundreds of articles about genealogy and family history. He previously served as the Chair of the National Council of Library & Information Associations (Washington, DC) and as Library Director of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and the New England Historic Genealogical Society. An active genealogist, he has been working on his own family history for 47 years. With the rapidly growing online archives at GenealogyBank – it is a great day for genealogy!

List of 50+ Mississippi Newspapers Online

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Tom Kemp

Mississippi is in the heart of the Old South. Today there are three million Mississippians living in the Magnolia State—and millions more have lived in the Delta area since its first settlement over 300 years ago.

With more than 50 Mississippi newspapers currently online and growing, GenealogyBank’s historical archives are your starting place for researching your family tree—dating back to the American Colonial period up to modern times—in this old Southern state.

Photo: Meridian, Mississippi. Credit: Wikipedia.

Here is the list of the Mississippi newspapers currently available in our online archives:

City	Title	Date Range*	Collection
Biloxi	Biloxi Herald	1/14/1888 – 11/26/1898	Newspaper Archives
Biloxi	Daily Herald	3/31/1888 – 12/31/1909	Newspaper Archives
Biloxi	Sun Herald	2/12/1994 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Brandon	Free State	1/20/1900 – 1/20/1900	Newspaper Archives
Clarksdale	Clarksdale Press Register	4/20/2005 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Cleveland	Bolivar Commercial	10/2/2009 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Columbia	Columbian-Progress	11/3/2008 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Columbus	Columbus Packet	12/12/2010 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Columbus	Commercial Dispatch	5/7/2002 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Corinth	Daily Corinthian	6/12/2011 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Eupora	Webster Progress-Times	3/25/2003 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Forest	Scott County Times	8/5/2003 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Gautier	Mississippi Press	8/15/2006 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Gautier	Mississippi Press, The: Web Edition Articles	10/18/2012 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Greenville	Delta Democrat Times	1/8/2002 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Greenwood	Greenwood Commonwealth	5/29/2000 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Gulfport	Daily Herald	1/1/1910 – 12/30/1922	Newspaper Archives
Hattiesburg	Lamar Times	4/21/2011 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Hattiesburg	Petal News	4/21/2011 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Indianola	Indianola Enterprise-Tocsin	9/16/2010 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Jackson	Clarion	1/6/1886 – 1/11/1888	Newspaper Archives
Jackson	Clarion Ledger	1/19/1888 – 3/6/1890	Newspaper Archives
Jackson	Jackson Advocate	2/23/2011 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Jackson	Mississippi Free Press	12/16/1961 – 8/1/1964	Newspaper Archives
Jackson	Mississippi Link	2/17/2011 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Jackson	Mississippi Weekly	5/18/1935 – 5/18/1935	Newspaper Archives
Jackson	Northside Sun	7/1/2007 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Kosciusko	Star Herald	1/7/2008 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Laurel	Laurel Leader-Call	5/2/2006 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Louisville	Choctaw Plaindealer	11/10/2005 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Louisville	Winston County Journal	3/25/2003 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Magee	Magee Courier, The & Simpson County News	1/3/2008 – Current	Recent Obituaries
McComb	Enterprise-Journal	12/24/1999 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Meridian	Meridian Star	2/17/2006 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Mound Bayou	Mound Bayou News-Digest	5/13/1950 – 5/13/1950	Newspaper Archives
Natchez	Ariel	7/20/1825 – 7/19/1828	Newspaper Archives
Natchez	Mississippi Free Trader	11/20/1844 – 3/28/1854	Newspaper Archives
Natchez	Mississippi State Gazette	3/6/1818 – 5/14/1825	Newspaper Archives
Natchez	Southern Clarion	5/13/1831 – 11/18/1831	Newspaper Archives
Natchez	Southern Galaxy	5/22/1828 – 3/18/1830	Newspaper Archives
Natchez	Statesman and Gazette	5/18/1825 – 10/24/1832	Newspaper Archives
New Albany	New Albany Gazette	11/20/2008 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Olive Branch	DeSoto Times-Tribune	3/25/2005 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Oxford	Oxford Eagle	2/9/2012 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Picayune	Picayune Item	2/5/2008 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Starkville	Starkville Daily News	3/9/2008 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Vicksburg	Daily Commercial	3/21/1877 – 12/28/1882	Newspaper Archives
Vicksburg	Golden Rule	1/27/1900 – 1/27/1900	Newspaper Archives
Vicksburg	Light	1/18/1900 – 1/18/1900	Newspaper Archives
West Point	Daily Times Leader	3/27/2008 – Current	Recent Obituaries
Winona	Winona Times & Conservative	4/2/2009 – Current	Recent Obituaries

6 More Newspapers Being Added to Recent Obituaries Collection

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Tom Kemp

Here’s a look ahead at six of the new newspapers we are adding to our “Recent Obituaries” online collection in April. This is just a snapshot of the millions of obituary records that we add every month to GenealogyBank to help you find your ancestors and trace your family tree.

GenealogyBank’s “Recent Newspaper Obituaries” search box

These recent obituaries are from five states and the District of Columbia: California, Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, Virginia, and Haymarket, D.C.

You can view our entire Recent Obituaries archives online: http://www.genealogybank.com/gbnk/obituaries/

Pasadena-San Gabriel Valley News Journal (Pasadena, CA)

Obituaries: 02/25/2009 – Current

Asian Fortune (Haymarket, DC)

Obituaries: 06/01/2000 – Current

Miami Herald, The: Blogs (Miami, FL)

Obituaries: 03/10/2008 – Current

Metro Times (Detroit, MI)

Obituaries: 08/04/1999 – Current

Horse News (Flemington, NJ)

Obituaries: 06/30/1994 – Current
Note: missing 2/2003-12/2003

Powhatan Today (Powhatan, VA)

Obituaries: 04/02/2008 – Current

Irish American Genealogy & Family History Facts Infographic

Posted on March 14, 2013 by Tom Kemp

Irish American Genealogy & Family History Facts Infographic

In celebration of Irish Heritage Month, here are some interesting facts about Irish ancestry in America.

Irish American Population Statistics

There are 34.5 million people who claim Irish ancestry in America

Approximately 11% of the total United States population is Irish American

There are over 7 times more people of Irish descent in the United States than the entire population of Ireland

History of Irish Immigration to America

There were 2 major waves of Irish immigration to America.

The first immigration period was in the Colonial era of the 18th century. These people set sail from the northern provinces of Ireland looking for new lives as American pioneers. The migration consisted of approximately 250,000 Scots-Irish who were predominately Protestant. The major ports of entry for these incoming Irish immigrants were in New York and Philadelphia.

The second wave of immigration was between 1846 and 1900. During this period approximately 2,873,000 people fled to America from the southern provinces of Ireland. This was primarily due to the Great Irish Potato Famine, which caused poverty and starvation throughout Ireland. These new arrivals were predominately of Catholic denomination. The major American ports of entry were in New York and Boston. The Irish also arrived on trains and ships from Canada, which was then called British North America.

Origins of the Saying “Luck of the Irish”

During the 1848-1855 California Gold Rush many Irish immigrants headed out West to mine silver & gold. Many Americans said the immigrants’ mining success was due to luck, not skill—hence the saying “Luck of the Irish.”

Common Irish Surnames

Here is a list of the top 10 most common Irish last names and their meanings:

Murphy – Sea Battlers
Kelly – Bright-headed Ones
O’Sullivan – Hawkeyed Ones
Walsh – Welshmen
O’Brien – Noblemen
Byrne – Ravens
Ryan – Little Kings
O’Connor – Patrons of Warriors
O’Neill - From a Champion, Niall of the Nine Hostages
O’Reilly – Outgoing People, Descendants of Reilly

Percentage of Irish Americans by State

The Northeastern United States has the highest concentration of Irish Americans. The following 9 states all have more than 15% Irish ancestry in their total populations. The states are listed in descending order from highest to lowest total Irish population percentages. Massachusetts has the highest percentage in the United States with 22.5% of its residents claiming Irish ancestry.

Massachusetts
New Hampshire
Rhode Island
Delaware
Connecticut
Vermont
Pennsylvania
New Jersey
Maine

The following 9 U.S. states also have high Irish American populations of 12-14%. Montana has the highest in this range with 14.8% of its population claiming Irish ancestry.

Montana
Iowa
Nebraska
Wyoming
New York
Missouri
Ohio
Colorado
Illinois

11% to 11.9% of the residents in the following 7 states claim Irish ancestry.

Oregon
Maryland
Kansas
Washington
Minnesota
Nevada
West Virginia

The remaining states have less than 11% Irish ancestry in their total populations.

Famous Americans Who Are a Wee Bit Irish

From presidents to outlaws, there have been many famous Irish Americans throughout U.S. history. Here are a few of them:

John F. Kennedy a.k.a. JFK: 35th President of the United States
Henry Ford: Founder of Ford Motor Company
Barack Obama: 44th President of the United States
William Henry McCarty Jr. a.k.a. Billy the Kid: Outlaw
Judy Garland: Actress & Singer
Bill O’Reilly: TV Host & Political Commentator
Conan O’Brien: TV Host & Comedian
Grace Kelly: Actress & Princess of Monaco
Walter Elias Disney a.k.a. Walt Disney: Film Producer & Co-founder of the Walt Disney Company
Danica Patrick: NASCAR Driver
Eddie Murphy: Actor & Comedian
Mel Gibson: Actor & Film Producer

Top Irish Genealogy Records

The top genealogy records to trace your Irish roots are:

Did You Know?

Civil registration in Ireland didn’t begin until 1864, although some non-Catholic marriages were recorded as early as 1845. Fortunately for genealogists, Irish American newspapers routinely published the news of Irish births, marriages and deaths for more than half a century before Ireland started recording them.

Got a little Irish in you? Discover your Irish American ancestry at http://www.genealogybank.com/gbnk/ethnic/irish_american/

Follow GenealogyBank on social media with hashtag #IrishHeritage for more Irish American genealogy facts throughout Irish Heritage Month.

Sources:

http://www.biography.com/people/groups/famous-irish-americans

http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/cb13-ff03.html

http://www.edwardtodonnell.com/

http://www.energyofanation.org/waves_of_irish_immigration.html

http://www.irishcentral.com/roots/The-10-most-popular-Irish-last-names-2-133737553.html?page=3

http://names.mongabay.com/ancestry/st-Irish.html

http://www.udel.edu/soe/deal/IrishImmigrationFacts.html

http://www.wikipedia.org/

23 Million Newspaper Records for all 50 U.S. States Just Added!

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Tom Kemp

Did you realize that every day GenealogyBank adds more records from over 3,000 newspapers from all 50 states? Our archivists and digital experts are gathering and digitizing more of America’s newspapers and putting them online continuously.

In the past month alone we added over 23 million newspaper records—that is more than 5 million records every week!

Here is a glimpse of just some of the new newspaper content that has recently been added to GenealogyBank. Since we can’t list all 3,000 newspapers here, we have selected a representative sample to give you a sense of GenealogyBank’s dynamic growth. Dig into our rapidly expanding newspaper archives and uncover your family history now!

Newspapers marked with an asterisk (*) are new to GenealogyBank.

State	City	Newspapers	Date Range	Collection
Alaska	Anchorage	Anchorage Daily News	1/2/1971–12/30/1972	Newspaper Archives
California	San Diego	Evening Tribune	9/2/1912–9/29/1936	Newspaper Archives
California	San Diego	San Diego Union	4/20/1881–12/23/1930	Newspaper Archives
California	San Francisco	Bay Citizen, The*	06/01/2010–Current	Recent Obituaries
Colorado	Denver	Denver Post	7/4/1903–5/22/1917	Newspaper Archives
Colorado	Denver	Denver Rocky Mountain News	11/30/1890–10/1/1898	Newspaper Archives
Colorado	Golden	Arvada Press*	08/30/2012–Current	Recent Obituaries
Colorado	Golden	Golden Transcript*	06/07/2012–Current	Recent Obituaries
Colorado	Golden	Wheat Ridge Transcript*	05/12/2012–Current	Recent Obituaries
Colorado	Lakewood	Lakewood Sentinel*	05/18/2012–Current	Recent Obituaries
Colorado	Thornton	Northglenn-Thornton Sentinel*	05/18/2012–Current	Recent Obituaries
Colorado	Westminster	Westminster Window*	05/18/2012–Current	Recent Obituaries
District of Columbia	Washington	Daily Union	05/01/1845–12/31/1853	Newspaper Archives
District of Columbia	Washington (DC)	Evening Star	4/11/1877–12/31/1922	Newspaper Archives
Georgia	Marietta	Marietta Journal	1/15/1961–12/8/1978	Newspaper Archives
Idaho	Idaho Falls	Post Register*	01/24/2013–Current	Recent Obituaries
Illinois	Belleville	Belleville News-Democrat: Blogs*	05/22/2009–Current	Recent Obituaries
Illinois	Chicago	Chicago Sun-Times: Blogs*	02/20/2008–Current	Recent Obituaries
Illinois	Elburn	Elburn Herald*	10/09/2008–Current	Recent Obituaries
Illinois	Springfield	Daily Illinois State Register	1/1/1856–1/14/1892	Newspaper Archives
Louisiana	Baton Rouge	Advocate	10/1/1943–5/15/1958	Newspaper Archives
Louisiana	Baton Rouge	State Times Advocate	3/3/1933–9/15/1969	Newspaper Archives
Louisiana	New Orleans	NOLA Defender*	03/13/2010–Current	Recent Obituaries
Maryland	Baltimore	Sun	8/9/1922–9/3/1922	Newspaper Archives
Massachusetts	Boston	Boston Herald	7/2/1855–9/19/1972	Newspaper Archives
Massachusetts	Boston	Boston Herald: Blogs*	10/28/2006–Current	Recent Obituaries
Massachusetts	Boston	Boston Traveler	9/1/1855–8/7/1951	Newspaper Archives
Massachusetts	Springfield	Republican, The: Web Edition Articles*	11/16/2012–Current	Recent Obituaries
Massachusetts	Springfield	Springfield Daily News	1/24/1914–11/6/1919	Newspaper Archives
Massachusetts	Springfield	Springfield Republican	01/18/1920–01/18/1920	Newspaper Archives
Massachusetts	Westfield	Westfield News, The*	12/13/2011–Current	Recent Obituaries
Michigan	Ann Arbor	Ann Arbor Daily Argus	11/17/1898–12/31/1906	Newspaper Archives
Michigan	Ann Arbor	Ann Arbor Daily Times	10/5/1907–4/7/1908	Newspaper Archives
Michigan	Ann Arbor	Michigan Argus	10/31/1879–12/20/1907	Newspaper Archives
Michigan	Ypsilanti	Ypsilanti Commercial	3/11/1864–8/18/1898	Newspaper Archives
Mississippi	Hattiesburg	Petal News, The*	04/21/2011–Current	Recent Obituaries
Nebraska	Omaha	Omaha Star*	01/07/2011–Current	Recent Obituaries
Nebraska	Omaha	Omaha World Herald	11/1/1981–11/30/1983	Newspaper Archives
Nevada	Boulder City	Boulder City Review*	11/05/2009–Current	Recent Obituaries
New Jersey	Leonia	Leonia Life*	01/22/2010–Current	Recent Obituaries
New York	Hastings-on-Hudson, Dobbs Ferry	Rivertowns Daily Voice*	08/02/2011–Current	Recent Obituaries
New York	New York	Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper	04/01/1871–10/21/1871	Newspaper Archives
New York	New York	New Yorker Volkszeitung	02/18/1894–02/28/1900	Newspaper Archives
New York	Westchester County	Newsday: Westchester County Edition*	05/02/2012–Current	Recent Obituaries
North Carolina	Charlotte	Charlotte Observer, The: Blogs*	11/09/2006–Current	Recent Obituaries
North Carolina	Greensboro	Greensboro Daily News	4/14/1945–9/30/1977	Newspaper Archives
North Carolina	Greensboro	Greensboro Record	2/22/1950–4/10/1981	Newspaper Archives
North Carolina	Reidsville	Eden Daily News, The*	02/13/2013–Current	Recent Obituaries
Ohio	Cincinnati	Cincinnati Post	1/7/1886–6/4/1920	Newspaper Archives
Oregon	Hood River	Hood River News*	08/09/2001–Current	Recent Obituaries
Pennsylvania	Philadelphia	Philadelphia City Paper*	06/29/2006–Current	Recent Obituaries
South Carolina	Charleston	Charleston Courier*	8/14/1860–2/15/1861	Newspaper Archives
South Carolina	Charleston	Charleston News and Courier	11/04/1897–07/16/1913	Newspaper Archives
South Carolina	Charleston	Evening Post	9/29/1914–8/29/1921	Newspaper Archives
Texas	Fredericksburg	Fredericksburg Standard-Radio Post*	08/07/2002–Current	Recent Obituaries
Vermont	Middlebury	Addison County Independent*	12/27/2006–Current	Recent Obituaries
Vermont	St. Johnsbury	Caledonian	8/12/1854–6/25/1897	Newspaper Archives
Vermont	St. Johnsbury	Caledonian-Record	11/25/1908–1/14/1925	Newspaper Archives
Virginia	Richmond	Richmond Times Dispatch	2/1/1948–12/31/1986	Newspaper Archives
Washington	Bellingham	Bellingham Herald, The: Blogs*	01/15/2008–Current	Recent Obituaries
Washington	Forks	Forks Forum*	12/15/2010–Current	Recent Obituaries
Wisconsin	Chippewa Falls	Chippewa Herald, The: Blogs*	06/21/2012–Current	Recent Obituaries
Wisconsin	Milwaukee	Wahrheit	09/05/1896–09/05/1896	Newspaper Archives

Irish American Newspapers Collection Online

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Tom Kemp

Irish American newspapers are a great source of the genealogical information we need to document our family trees back to Ireland.

Part of GenealogyBank’s 6,500 newspaper archives is a special collection of 8 Irish American newspapers, providing coverage from 1810 to Today. These historical newspaper archives contain exclusive genealogy records that cannot be found anywhere else online, including 1800s Irish vital records that predate Civil Registration in Ireland.

GenealogyBank’s Irish American newspapers search form

Use this search page to search all of our Irish American newspapers at one time.

You can also search each paper separately. Here is a quick list of the individual search pages for each of the eight Irish American newspaper archives:

Exile (New York City, New York) 1817

Irish American Weekly (New York City, New York) 1849-1914

Irish Citizen (New York City, New York) 1867-1868

Irish Nation (New York City, New York) 1881-1883

Irish Voice (New York City, New York) 2006-Present, Obituaries only

Irish World (New York City, New York) 1890-1905

The Shamrock, Hibernian Chronicle (New York City, New York) 1810-1817

Western Star (New York City, New York) 1812-1813

Thousands More Recent Obituaries from 13 States Coming Soon!

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Tom Kemp

GenealogyBank is adding 21 new newspapers with thousands more obituaries to its Recent Obituaries archives to help with your family history research.

GenealogyBank’s search form for Recent Newspaper Obituaries

These newspapers are from 13 states: California, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Massachusetts, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.

You can view our entire Recent Obituaries archives here: http://www.genealogybank.com/gbnk/obituaries/

These newspapers will be added in the next few weeks.

Bay Citizen (San Francisco, CA)

Obituaries: 06/01/2010 – Current

Arvada Press (Golden, CO)

Obituaries: 08/30/2012 – Current

Golden Transcript (Golden, CO)

Obituaries: 06/07/2012 – Current

Lakewood Sentinel (Lakewood, CO)

Obituaries: 05/18/2012 – Current

Northglenn-Thornton Sentinel (Thornton, CO)

Obituaries: 05/18/2012 – Current

Westminster Window (Westminster, CO)

Obituaries: 05/18/2012 – Current

Wheat Ridge Transcript (Golden, CO)

Obituaries: 05/12/2012 – Current

Post Register (Idaho Falls, ID)

Obituaries: 01/24/2013 – Current

Belleville News-Democrat: Blogs (Belleville, IL)

Obituaries: 05/22/2009 – Current

Chicago Sun-Times: Blogs (Chicago, IL)

Obituaries: 02/20/2008 – Current

Elburn Herald (Elburn, IL)

Obituaries: 10/09/2008 – Current

Boston Herald: Blogs (Boston, MA)

Obituaries: 10/28/2006 – Current

Boulder City Review (Boulder City, NV)

Obituaries: 11/26/2009 – Current

Newsday: Westchester County Edition (NY)

Obituaries: 05/02/2012 – Current

Charlotte Observer: Blogs (Charlotte, NC)

Obituaries: 11/09/2006 – Current

Eden Daily News (Reidsville, NC)

Obituaries: 02/13/2013 – Current

Hood River News (Hood River, OR)

Obituaries: 08/09/2001 – Current

Philadelphia City Paper (Philadelphia, PA)

Obituaries: 06/29/2006 – Current

Addison County Independent (Middlebury, VT)

Obituaries: 12/27/2006 – Current

Bellingham Herald: Blogs (Bellingham, WA)

Obituaries: 01/15/2008 – Current

Chippewa Herald: Blogs (Chippewa Falls, WI)

Obituaries: 06/21/2012 – Current

Record Your Family Stories: How Did Your Parents Meet?

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Tom Kemp

How did your parents meet? My Dad told me recently how he met Mom over 70 years ago at the University of New Hampshire.

Tom Kemp’s parents Bill and Ellie. Photo from the author’s collection.

The students were going to Thanksgiving dinner. Since it was a special occasion, they had the men and women eat together. They each filed in separately, sat down—and there she was, his bride-to-be, seated across the table from him! It happened again the next month. For Christmas the same process took place and in they filed, separately: men on one side and the women on the other. And there she was again, seated directly across from him! Given their series of serendipitous encounters they knew their love was meant to be and a courtship began. When the nation was attacked at Pearl Harbor, my Dad enlisted. Following World War II they married—and a few weeks ago they celebrated their 68th wedding anniversary.

Newspapers have preserved the stories of our lives—including Bill Nye’s interesting story of when he first met his parents.

Bill Nye Visits His Birthplace, Jackson Citizen Patriot newspaper article 12 June 1885

Jackson Citizen Patriot (Jackson, Michigan), 12 June 1885, page 3

Mid-1800s American humorist and newspaper columnist Edgar Wilson Nye, aka Bill Nye, remembered the day when he first met his parents—“a casual meeting” that over the years forged itself into a “powerful bond” between his parents and himself. Read his poignant and humorous account here: http://bit.ly/12wNaMx

Bill Nye was having fun with his audience, but it does raise the question: how did you meet the family members you love? And how did they meet? How did your parents meet?

Record your family stories, and pass them on to the rising generation.

And share your family stories with us. Tell us how your parents or grandparents met, or when you first met your parents, in the comments.

2013 Family History Expo Conference in St. George a Great Success

Posted on March 1, 2013 by Tom Kemp

Over 700 genealogists packed the lecture halls at the Dixie Center in St. George, Utah, this past weekend to get training and sharpen their genealogy research skills at the 2013 Family History Expo.

Family History Expos logo

James Tanner’s opening keynote remarks, “Top 10 Techniques,” made it clear that newspapers are critical to documenting our family history.

Photo: James Tanner. Credit: Family History Expos.

That same point was made again and again by speakers at this year’s Family History Expo. With conference sessions like: “Newspaper, Critical Resource to Document Your Family Tree” by Thomas Jay Kemp; “Preservation Techniques for Documents, Newspapers and Photos” by Sharon Monson; “Tracing Colonial Immigrants” by Nathan Murphy; and “Obituaries—Clues to Look For” also by Tom Kemp, the importance of newspapers to genealogy research was made clear. All the conference talks were popular and well attended.

Among the dozens of presentations there were some new services announced, like the new FamilySearch Photos service that is available online in a Beta release. This new family tree tool allows users of the free Family Trees on FamilySearch.org to incorporate photos into their online tree. This feature allows genealogists to upload images of their ancestors, tag/identify ancestors in the photos, and associate the tagged ancestors in the photos to the Family Tree.

The family history conference covered a wide variety of sessions ranging from: German, French, Scandinavian and English genealogy research; to preparing your family history, letters and documents for publication in print or online.

One novel approach to genealogy was discussed during Marlo E. Schuldt’s presentation “It’s Time to Do a Slideshow Biography.” The slideshow biography format may be the answer you have been looking for. It’s an easy way to share a life sketch or family history that is online and visual, and can engage people in their heritage in a new way.

Here are links to download the PowerPoint decks Tom covered at the FH Expo:

Newspapers: A Critical Resource to Complete Your Family Tree
Top Genealogy Websites for the 21st Century

Genealogy Tip: Search Surname & Year Only for More Results

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Tom Kemp

I recently received an email from some GenealogyBank users, asking why they couldn’t find any newspaper articles about a tragic death that occurred in 1956:

“We are having trouble finding information about a couple of deaths in our area. A couple, Wilbert Arvo Pernu and Dagmar Charlotte Bolborg Pernu, died by asphyxiation on 8 December 1956 in St. Louis County, Minnesota. Dagmar’s third name is sometimes spelled Valborg. Her maiden name was Sather. She went by ‘June.’ We would like to find a newspaper article, if there was one. Can you help?”

They knew the full names of the deceased and the general facts of the fatal tragedy, including when and where it happened. Why were they having trouble getting results for their newspaper archives searches?

When searching through 1.4 billion newspaper articles, it can sometimes be difficult to get results matching your search terms because you never know how much information the newspapers included about your target ancestor in their articles. What names did they use? What key terms?

For best results, you want to look for the most unique information to use as your search terms.

In this example it is the couple’s surname “Pernu” and the fact that they died in December 1956.

I began the search with just those two clues, putting Pernu in the surname box and December 1956 in the date box on the search form.

That generated two possible matching news articles. One of the results was the article they needed.

Monoxide Kills Two in Stalled Auto, Aberdeen Daily News newspaper article 9 December 1956

Aberdeen Daily News (Aberdeen, South Dakota), 9 December 1956, page 14

If this old news article about the tragedy was so easy to find, why did the email writers have such trouble finding it?

It was probably because they were typing in too much information in GenealogyBank’s search boxes.

There is a natural tendency to want to narrow our search results by typing in all of the information that we have about our target ancestor or the circumstances around an event.

But quite often: less is more.

Resist that desire to be very specific in your searches—try your initial searches using unique, minimal information.

Here are some of the reasons why, in this instance, a more specific newspapers archive search would not return the desired article about the tragic accident:

The newspaper article did not include Wilbert Pernu’s middle name. If we had included it in our search, the results would not have found this article.
If we had included the name of the wife (Dagmar Charlotte Bolborg Pernu), her maiden name (Slather), or that she went by the name “June,” then we also would not have found this article. Why? Because she was not named in the article; it simply referred to “Wilbert Pernu…and his wife.”
Notice that they were tragically killed in Minnesota—but the article describing the events appeared in a South Dakota newspaper. If we had limited the search to only Minnesota newspapers we would not have found this article.
I limited the search to the month and year (December 1956) and not to a specific date.

Genealogy Search Tip: Focus your search on the surname, especially when it is a distinctive surname. Use a wide date range, such as a year, and do not limit your search to a specific date. If you find that this search produces too many or too few search results, then you can narrow or expand your search until you find your target articles.

Genealogy Find: Deaths Reported in Philadelphia Alms House

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Tom Kemp

Americans have taken care of their vulnerable neighbors in different ways over the centuries.

For example, in Colonial Philadelphia there was established an “Alms House & House of Employment,” often called the Alms House for short. It was located on Spruce Street.

illustration of Philadelphia's Alms House, 1800

Credit: Independence Hall Association, Philadelphia: Birch’s View of Philadelphia in 1800

Back in Colonial and Early America, when families, the elderly, or those with needs couldn’t make it on their own, they turned to their neighbors for help. Communities responded by erecting alms houses like this one in Philadelphia.

Also called “work houses,” these public shelters—often run by local churches or groups—provided housing and food in exchange for work on various projects. People relied on these institutions for support until they were able to reestablish themselves.

Some residents could not manage to reestablish their independence, and ended up dying in the work houses—as in this list of 22 men, women and children that died at the Philadelphia Alms House in 1803.

deaths in Philadelphia's Alms House, Poulson's American Daily Advertiser newspaper article 9 September 1803

Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), 9 September 1803, page 3

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