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In trying to answer Determining who died on particular voyage of ship?, I tried searching GenealogyBank.com since I have a paid subscription and wanted to help @JustinY. His question was 'how' so I could have just answered with a link to the site. However, I didn't want him to pay for a subscription just to find it was fruitless. I have used GenealogyBank successfully to find information on my ancestors, but I've never used it to find a particular newspaper from a particular time frame. If I already knew the answer to his question (who died on the voyage of the William Stetson that docked in NY May 1855), then I could look it up by name. But this is the inverse-- how do I find a particular article without the name to then read the name?

I tried reading their help and tried various things, but was unsuccessful in determining how to do it. For example I used keywords but in this particular case the ship name (William Stetson) has 22K hits since that particular name has genealogical significance in it's own right (e.g., I'm a member of the Stetson Kindred). I'm sure it's there and I'm just missing it somehow. So, I thought I'd ask here since others may have the same question.

How do I search for a newspaper (instead of a person) on Genealogy Bank? I.e., a particular newspaper on a particular date. Or a particular article using something other than the name of a person (in this case a ship)?

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  • If you know the name of the newspaper, it fairly easy to drill down by checking the box for state, then city and then the name of the paper. Is this what you want?
    – bgwiehle
    Commented Nov 18, 2012 at 14:18
  • @bgwiehle, you could write that into a nice answer, methinks.
    – GeneJ
    Commented Nov 18, 2012 at 15:20

2 Answers 2

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Finding a specific title in the Historical Newspaper collection at GenealogyBank is pretty easy. Once you have found the title, you can also search the material using their basic and advanced search options.

(1) There are several ways to locate a specific newspaper.

From the GenealogyBank home page, work from the Historical "Newspaper Archives, 1690-2010" > "...Archives by State" > "... by City" > " ... by newspaper title."

From the GenealogyBank home page, access the "Newspaper Titles" index > then choose the "....State" > then select the "... City" > finally select the " ... by newspaper title."

From the GenealogyBank home page, scroll down to "Search U.S. Newspaper Titles by State" > then select the "... City" > finally select the " ... by newspaper title."

Note: You may want to do a little research about the newspaper before you search, as some papers can be cataloged (finding aid) under slightly different names.

I don't think GenealogyBank yet lets you drill down to a specific publication dates, but their summaries about the newspaper titles provide insight into the range of dates available from this digitized version/GenealogyBank content. (I would love to learn that I am wrong or that my information is out of date, as I would often use the more specific feature to either look up or more quickly browse a certain paper.)

(2) Use the "Keyword" option ("Advanced Search") to search an additional field and/or terms that are not a personal name.

To search for information that is not an individual's name, use the GenealogyBank "Advanced Search" option and add information to the "Include Keyword" option.

The same "Advance Search" feature allows you to limit your search by date and/or location. Combine it with the "newspaper search" concepts above to perform an even more targeted search.

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Since the previous answer was written, GenealogyBank has redesigned the site and included some new features. Look under the Browse menu on the top navigation bar:

enter image description here

From there you can filter the available newspapers, and browse through the collection to see what papers are available, in a fashion similar to the record picker on fold3. For the screenshot, I chose the 30 May 1855 issue of the Herald which was sought for in the related question.

enter image description here

Here we can see that GenealogyBank does have one edition of the paper for May 30, 1855. Clicking on the link for Edition 1 opens up the next pane, from which we can choose the individual pages (eight pages are available).

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