Accessing a Member Benefit: NewspaperArchive

 

The National Genealogical Society offers its paid individual members many benefits. One favorite is the free subscription to NewspaperArchive. If you haven’t yet searched its database, you are in for a treat. Its extensive, easy-to-use collection will undoubtedly make it one of your favorite benefits.

What is NewspaperArchive?

NewspaperArchive is an online, historical newspaper database. A yearly subscription normally costs $95 and change. As an NGS member, you have free access to its entire database with 280+ million pages of digitized newspaper content from over 15,500 different publication titles from the United States and many other countries around the world. Newspapers span 1736 to present day.

How Do You Access This Member Benefit?

First, go to the NGS website and log into your account. You’ll know you are logged in because you’ll see the Welcome [your name] message at the top right. Now, click on Member Benefits at the top toolbar and select Individual Member Benefits. You’ll find NewspaperArchive listed on the drop-down menu.

Click on NewspaperArchive. This will take you to the NewspaperArchive web page on the NGS website. From this web page, click on the blue Access NewspaperArchive button.

Clicking on the blue button brings you to the NewspaperArchive website homepage. You can start your search on this page. Please note: ignore the user log-in at the top right of the page, you are already logged in via your NGS account.

From the homepage you can do a basic search by name, keyword, or newspaper titles. If you need more options for searching, click on the Advanced Search link at the bottom of the search box. The Advanced Search enhances your search by allowing you to search by name, location, keywords, publication, and date. Once you conduct a basic search, such as on a name, you will have the opportunity to narrow your search on your results page by country or US state and city and by date range.

Your search results list will include the number of results, thumbnails images of the results, and ways to narrow your results on the right-hand side of the page. 

Click on one of your results and you will be taken to the newspaper page. At the top, you’ll see the publication name and date, page numbers, and the Find on Page function. Fill in a name or keyword and it will be highlighted on the newspaper page. At the top right, you can choose to download the image of that newspaper page, save it to your computer or print it. At the top left you can choose to brighten or add contrast to the newspaper page or zoom in or out.

Start Using NewspaperArchive Today

If you haven’t tried searching for your ancestors on NewspaperArchive, give it a try. You may discover a long lost relative or uncover a story about a great grandfather. And, if you have used it in the past, be sure to check back in. NewspaperArchive is consistently adding new content. To learn more about searching NewspaperArchive, see the NGS video by Mary Roddy, Finding Treasures in NewspaperArchive: How an NGSQ Editor Mines this New Member Benefit. 

Enjoy one of the best free member benefits from NGS!

 

Cleaning house?!?! Soon to disappear Genealogy Tools and Services

Yesterday’s blog post was about changes to 23andMe where information previously available to genealogists appears to be not available in the newest incarnation of the site.

After I wrote that blog post, within the span of 1 minute, I checked a website (Godfrey Memorial Library Online (remote access option) which I have been a subscriber to for years, mostly for the newspaper access) and saw the notice at the top of this post where access to NewspaperArchive will no longer we available as 2016 starts.  I've always liked the ability to access that and 19th Century US Newspapers in one place and affordably.  Now my research into digitized newspaper archives will become more fragmented!

And, in case you haven't heard ... as I know this information was posted seemingly everywhere ... 

I received an email from Ancestry about discontinuing Family Tree Maker.  I have used Family Tree Maker for many years. I have found it a decent tool for my client projects where I just sometimes need to create a basic tree and keep some personal and research notes along the way.  It has suited that purpose admirably – easy to read reports and trees that I could share with my clients regarding their ancestors.  I really don’t have an interest in creating cloud based trees for these projects (and I definitely will not create Ancestry.com ones) and at least I have through the end of 2017 to come up with a new game plan ...

Ancestry is proud to have made a significant investment this year to bring valuable new content and records to the Ancestry site. In 2015, we’ve made 220 million searchable historical records from Mexico available, more than 170 million pages from the largest collection of U.S. will and probate records, among others. We’ve also introduced new features such as Ancestry Academy, and major advancements for AncestryDNA.

As we strive to provide our customers with the best experience possible, we are constantly evaluating our services and product offerings. True to this focus, we’ve taken a hard look at the declining desktop software market and the impact this has on being able to continue to provide new content, product enhancements and support that our users need. With that, we’ve made the tough decision to stop selling Family Tree Maker as of December 31, 2015.

We will continue to support existing Family Tree Maker owners at least through January 1, 2017. During this time, all features of the software, including TreeSync™ will continue to work. Our Member Services team will also remain available to assist with questions or issues you may have.

These changes are never easy. But by focusing our efforts, we can concentrate on continuing to build great products for our loyal Ancestry community.

You can find additional details about the retirement of Family Tree Maker on our blog.

In the wake of the above announcement RootsMagic is offering an "update discount for Family Tree Maker users" to purchase its software product. You must use the special link provided in the offer post to take advantage. Additionally, Family Historian 6 is also available at a discount.  There might be other options available at a discount so definitely do look around.

There are many other genealogy software alternatives if such is of interest to you. Here is a comparison page.

Most importantly, do remember that just because a piece of software is no longer supported, this does not mean that you cannot continue to use it.  If you like to synch your FTM to your online Ancestry.com tree, that capability will go away, as will any "following leaves" and related online interactive features and as far as maintaining a record of your ancestors with notes, images, etc -- none of that will be affected!  You can still add people and records to your tree and you will still be able to export that information to others. I still use the Microsoft 2003 suite of software products and they work pretty well given their age and for having not been supported for a long time!

It’s always hard to say “goodbye” to tools that one has used for a long time, and, on the other hand, change is inevitable.

I just figure that everyone must be doing some “cleaning house” as 2015 rolls to a close ...

Have you heard of any other changes/discontinuations that impact family historians?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

copyright © National Genealogical Society, 3108 Columbia Pike, Suite 300, Arlington, Virginia 22204-4370. http://www.ngsgenealogy.org.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Republication of UpFront articles is permitted and encouraged for non-commercial purposes without express permission from NGS. Please drop us a note telling us where and when you are using the article. Express written permission is required if you wish to republish UpFront articles for commercial purposes. You may send a request for express written permission to UpFront@ngsgenealogy.org. All republished articles may not be edited or reworded and must contain the copyright statement found at the bottom of each UpFront article.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Think your friends, colleagues, or fellow genealogy researchers would find this blog post interesting? If so, please let them know that anyone can read past UpFront with NGS posts or subscribe!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Suggestions for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please send any suggested topics to UpfrontNGS@mosaicrpm.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Unless indicated otherwise or clearly an NGS Public Relations piece, Upfront with NGS posts are written by Diane L Richard, editor, Upfront with NGS.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Want to learn more about interacting with the blog, please read Hyperlinks, Subscribing and Comments -- How to Interact with Upfront with NGS Blog posts!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Follow NGS via Facebook, YouTube, Google+, Twitter