I’ve always enjoyed using newspapers to do genealogical research. There’s something about scrolling through rolls of microfilm and looking at the advertising while searching for the marriage announcements and obituaries of my ancestors. The articles and advertising provide great context for the time periods in which my ancestors lived, not to mention that some of the advertisements are just plain amusing.

I’ve been very fortunate in finding newspaper articles. One branch of my family lived in Chicago for several generations, and some of the relatives became rather prominent. I found articles about this family that dealt with messy lawsuits, courtroom brawls, bitter divorces, successful court appointments, murder, plus the usual marriage announcements and obituaries. In researching this family, I discovered a great trick.

The Chicago Tribune is fully digitized online through ProQuest along with several other major newspapers. However, the articles can only be accessed for a fee. At the time that I was researching this family, it wasn’t feasible for me to pay to access these articles, but there were a number of articles that I knew would be useful in my research. I checked my university library (I was a student at the time.) and discovered that the Chicago Tribune was held at my library on microfilm. With this information I was able to search the index provided through ProQuest, then access the articles via the microfilms at the library. For me it was a great work-around for accessing the articles. Of course, this trick only works for people who have enough time to devote to searching the microfilms. Sometimes paying for the articles is a better option.

Even if you don’t have access to a university library or if your local library doesn’t have the microfilms of the newspaper you need, you can probably still obtain the microfilms using inter-library loan. Most libraries offer this service for free or for a small fee. It’s worth a look to examine the newspapers that might hold articles about your ancestors and whether those newspapers have been indexed and digitized. If so, consider heading to your local library to find out more about your ancestors and add a little context to their lives.

Of course, with so many newspapers now being posted online, it can be even easier to find this context then it was just a few short years ago. But, online newspapers are a subject for a future blog or two.