A big
challenge to genealogical and family history researchers can be that “news”
about our ancestors was published in ethnic non-english publications produced
where they lived in the U.S.
Many of us
never had or have lost the ability to read in any language other than
English. This can be a real challenge
just not when trying to access early church records (e.g. those Lutheran and
Greek Orthodox churches of my ancestors in Massachusetts kept their records in
Finnish and Russian/Latin, respectively, which means they are essentially
unavailable to me) and also newspapers.
If your
emigrant family was from Chicago (as my husband’s was), you will be excited to
learn that The Newberry Library has made available online (and for free) The Chicago Foreign Language
Press Survey This was published in 1942 by the Chicago Public Library
Omnibus Project of the Works Projects Administration of Illinois. The purpose
of the project was to translate and classify selected news articles that
appeared in the foreign language press from 1855 to 1938. The project consists
of 120,000 typewritten pages translated from newspapers of 22 different foreign
language communities of Chicago
I tried to
search on some of the Polish and Russian names from my husband’s side of the
family with no success. Hopefully you
will be more successful.
Did your family live in a Chicago
Editor’s Note: It is likely that most
of our family members will not be found in this collection. Even if your family is not found, you might
learn something about the emigrant community to which they belonged or
similarly the town or locale where they immigrated to.
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