250 Hometown Newspapers



 

small town-jan 4, 2002-ArizonaThe site ‘SmallTownPapers‘ you have free access to more than 250 current small town newspapers in the United States. Look down the list of states and names of newspapers in that state available. From the newspaper’s main page on the SmallTownPapers site, click the Scanned Archives tab and then the Browse icon to view the available years. Next, click the year link to see which issues have been digitized. Click the date link to view the newspaper itself. The archives mostly consist of issues from 2006 to the present, but there are some issues from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.


Click the Search icon on the selected newspaper’s Scanned Archives page to run a keyword search. Click the link in the search results to view a digitized newspaper page. Access an index of newspapers by state through the Browse by State tab on the website’s homepage.  small town-Mar 29, 1973-GA

Once you locate an interesting article with a keyword or surname in the search, that page can be made full size so you can easily read it. You can not right click to save to your computer but you could do a ‘screen print’ to save that page for storage.

By trying different search methods such as surnames, hometown, businesses, you might come up with all types of new and interesting information. Reminder, just because an article was printed in 1999, doesn’t mean there might not be information on individuals and places in the small town from decades earlier. It is worth investigating.

It can be very helpful with any recent listings such as ‘public notices’ small town-May 20, 2015-MDfor any unknown heirs to someone’s estate. Use the SmallTownPapers site.

Photos: Jan. 4, 2002 in Arizona, March 29, 1973 in Jones Co., GA and a May 20, 2015 public notice on for unknown heirs to a Maryland estate.

Related FamilyTree.com genealogy blogs:

Newspapers ONLINE

Chronicling America

Variety of Hometown Newspapers

 

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