Historic images and newspapers
Enrich your family history with
the historic matrix in which your family’s stories reside. Grandpa’s stories of
doing without during World War II will come to life with headlines and photos
of those events.
Photos and Illustrations
Family photos are usually a
collection of posed pictures of people. Newspaper and government projects were
among the first to employ photographers to document events, places, cities,
trains, people doing things, etc. These photos are also some of the most
well-preserved.
Add some of these to your
project to give visual enhancement to the family stories. Excerpts and photos
from newspapers and political cartoons and posters also demonstrate political and
social issues.
You can access and download many
of these images online. Do a search using the following keywords: “Historical
society”. . . library. . . digital. . .image. . . collections. . . online.
Here are a few sources to get you started.
Library
of Congress Click on Digital Collections for
over 1 million online American and international photographs and illustrations.
You can also access historic video, newspapers, and maps.
British
Library Scanned Collections Online has historic images of the UK, Eastern and Western Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas with links to collection in Scotland, Wales, US, and Canada.
Picturing
the Century US historic photos from 1900-1994.
Minnesota Historical Society Over 100,000 online
digital images of Minnesota from before it was a territory to the present.
Newspapers
Public opinion at the time that
your family stories took place is worth examining. You can find that in the way
newspaper articles were written and what was considered newsworthy.
Reprints of
articles and front page images for many newspapers are available, some online.
You may have to pay for the information, but the research to find the existence
and availability of such newspaper information is often free.
Library
of Congress for digital newspaper pages on-line 1897-1910 for California, Dist. Of Columbia, Florida, Kentucky, New York, Utah, and Virginia. Eventually all states will be
represented dating back to as early as 1836. You can get information about
newspapers going back to 1690.
International
Coalition on Newspapers has links to institutions and
organizations from around the world who are working to digitize historic
newspapers. Among their prestigious participants are the British Library, US
Library of Congress, Harvard University, and many more.
More historic matrix
Ancestral migration
Evaluate sources
Music & moving pictures
Internet search tips
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Copyright September 2009 Family History Coach All rights reserved Last update April 27, 2010
