Over the years I’ve continued to collect what little information I could find on my third-great-grandfather, Gold Canfield. He died in 1814 in the War of 1812, having frozen his arm while on guard duty in Harlem Heights, New York. His wife, Nancy Hayes, applied for a pension for her minor children following his death, [...]

The following article was written by my good friend, Tom Kemp: Searching Newspaper ‘Local Briefs’ – Family History Gems that make Local Briefs Essential to your Family History Research. Experienced genealogists rely on historical newspapers, tracking down obituaries, birth announcements and marriage notices to help fill in details on their family trees. However, many people [...]

The following article is by my friend, Tom Kemp. “Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar, all who love obits stand up and holler!” That is probably not the way you heard that cheer in school, but genealogists sure do love obituaries. Obituaries and death notices provide a wealth of valuable information—not only about [...]

The following article was written, by my friend, Tom Kemp: Genealogists are hungry for details about the lives of our ancestors, information that can only be found in newspapers. To get to know our ancestors better—the lives they lived, their hardships and triumphs—you need to know their stories. For that kind of information, nothing beats [...]

The following newspaper titles were recently added to the family history archives found in GenealogyBank.com and ObitsArchive.com. They recently added more than 104 newspapers from 35 states – over 130 million new articles. ObitsArchive.com NEW CONTENT: (1977 to present day) CA-Mammoth Times CO-Montrose Daily Press, The CT-New Canaan News-Review CT-Ridgefield Press, The FL-Hernando Today IA-Daily [...]

I got a note from my friend, Tom Kemp, this morning, apprising me of the fact that GenealogyBank.com is now up to over 280 African-American newspapers in their online offerings. The following is from the website: This fully searchable and expanding collection of newspapers provides details about the daily lives of millions of African Americans [...]

Tom Kemp just posted a blog with a copy of Michael Jackson‘s Social Security Death Index info. GenealogyBank already has the data up, as they update their SS Death Index every week. The data from GenealogyBank’s Database is as follows: Social Security Death Index Name: Michael Joseph Jackson Date of Birth: Friday August 29, 1958 [...]

Tom Kemp is reporting the passing of genealogist Linda Fay Kaufman, on his GenealogyBank blog. “She put her family history research online and actively corresponded with genealogists across the country. A search of the genealogy lists shows her posts as recently as the last few months.” Read Ms. Kaufman’s obituary on the GenealogyBank blog website.

The following digitized newspapers are either available or planned at GenealogyBank.com According to Tom’s entry today at the GenealogyBank Blog, “in the months ahead GenealogyBank will be expanding it’s coverage of 9 newspapers from 9 states.” The dates of this planned coverage follow each of the titles below. The second date is what is available [...]

The folks at Readex (a division of NewsBank – the people that bring you GenealogyBank) are making a package of (initially) nine digitized historic newspapers available. The package will be called American Newspaper Archives. It looks to me like new product is packaged specifically for the college market – to be used by students & [...]

Tom Kemp, with GenealogyBank, just sent me a list of exciting new changes that have been made to the search capabilities in the Historic Newspaper Collection at GenealogyBank. The new search allows the following that we could not do before: Limit search to most recently added content Search multiple states at once Search multiple cities [...]

The following announcement was released today by GenealogyBank. It seems they have added another 170 newspapers to their collection, with the total number of records posted since 2006 now estimated to be about 93 million. GenealogyBank is one of my favorite websites. It’s one that I consider a must-have in online genealogy subscription sites. Following [...]

I had the privilege and opportunity to try out the new GenealogyBank.com just as it launched in mid-October. In the process I searched many early newspapers, historic books, documents, and other resources. Along with numerous other items, I found a letter written by my third great grandfather, William Canfield – the first thing I’ve ever [...]