Roots & Branches

     If you are looking for info from old newspapers, this is the age to live in. I am so impressed with the new digitizing projects. Take a look at all the many projects around the nation diligently preparing for us the digitized newspapers.

On the internet, many of the states list their newspaper projects. I for one am planning on using many of them. This is so cool. I am very excited. We no longer have to write all those letters or make all those phone calls, looking for that lost relative. I always think of my cousin Maxine, who has done years of this. She spent countless years compiling her own archives of sorts.

Lucky us. Now we can click on the internet and look at many of the old newspapers. If you have not tried this, take a look. I don’t know about you, but I could get lost in all the history alone.

The Digital Newspaper Project for Wyoming is many months off from its launch, but I will try to keep you informed as the release is announced.

Erin McKinney from the Wyoming State Library is one of the key people working on the new Digital Newspaper Project for Wyoming. She has sent the following information:

For the sheer volume of information they contain, newspapers are the single most important printed record of human activity. Historians, genealogists, and other scholars rely on them to provide a first-hand and sometimes the only account of local news. The Wyoming Newspaper Project will make newspapers printed in Wyoming between 1849 and 1922 accessible in an easily searchable format.

The Wyoming State Archives has finished copying the master microfilm onto polyester film and sending those copies to the vendor. The vendor is busy scanning reels and processing images. The Wyoming State Library has been receiving 1 TB hard drives full of data every few weeks, and loading them onto the server. As of early May, we have 20 newspapers loaded for ten cities. We have begun hiring metadata workers to start augmenting the records. The project is really starting to take off, but right now it is all behind the scenes. We don’t have an anticipated launch date, but for more information and project updates, please see http://wyonewspapers.org/

Special thanks to all of the people responsible in any way for the Digital Newspaper Projects everywhere.

If you know of a special project that would help other genealogists, let me know. I would love to hear from you!