The U.S. Newspaper Program

By Connie Lenzen

An article written for 23 October 2003 issue of the Vancouver Columbian newspaper.

Old newspapers are a wonderful resource for genealogists. Obituaries, news items, anniversary announcements, legal notices, gossip columns, and even weather reports contain the kind of vital and biographical information that we want to include in our family history.

The legal notices reveal a lot about the times that our ancestors lived. This one from the Harrison Telegraph, Cadiz Ohio, Saturday, November 6, 1824, provides an insight into working conditions. [I've changed the names.]

Six-Cent Reward
Walked away, being too lazy to run, the 14th inst. an apprentice to the Tanning business named, Anthony Brown, about 19 years of age. The above reward but neither thanks nor charges will be given to any person who will return said apprentice to the subscriber.
Thomas Night
New Rumley, Harrison County, Ohio

Many newspapers have been microfilmed and are available via Inter-Library Loan.

Inter-Library Loan (ILL) is a system whereby libraries borrow books and microfilm from other libraries. The "trick" is finding what it is that we want to borrow.

The United States Newspaper Program is a national effort to locate, catalog, and preserve on microfilm newspapers published in the United States. The National Endowment for the Humanities provides the funding. There are projects in each of the fifty states.

Each state project is conducted by a single organization, usually the state's largest newspaper repository. The project staff inventories newspaper holdings in libraries and other repositories. These newspapers are cataloged and entered in the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) database. Librarians can search OCLC for these items and obtain them for their library patrons on ILL.

Information about this project is found on the website, http://www.neh.gov/projects/usnp.html

Sometimes the repository with the newspaper will not loan it. They will only let people use the film in their library. Then, we need to find someone who lives in the area to do our footwork. This can be a volunteer or a professional researcher. The library may have a list of researchers. Another way to find someone is to join an Internet mail list for the county where the library is located. These mail lists are found on Rootsweb.com.

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© 2003

Connie Lenzen, CG