* Ancestry's "Historical Newspapers, Birth, Marriage, & Death Announcements, 1851-2003"

[AdrianBruce]

Collection Historical Newspapers, Birth, Marriage, & Death Announcements, 1851-2003
This was on Ancestry and I have used it. However, I cannot access it any more, nor find it in the Card Catalog.

Anyone know what happened to it? Or even want to tell me I'm talking nonsense? It may have been split up and / or shipped out to Newspapers.com, I guess.

So much for my earlier sourcing - I have some images dating from 2007, which have filenames including "New York Times", but there's no meta data in the images to give me any more origin details, and they've no source-records yet. My belief that the particular images come from Ancestry's Historical Newspapers, Birth, Marriage, & Death Announcements, 1851-2003 is based more on the idea that similar items that do have source-records, have that as their origin.

I am fairly certain that I've never had access to the NYT online archives - 'cos they ain't free!

[Gowermick]

Adrian,
Are you sure it wasn’t Findmypast?
I am currently checking for missing PR marriage images on line, using Ancestry & FMP, and have been presented with a few such notices over the past week, I’m not sure which site they came from, but I know one of them has them

[tatewise]

A Google search found the following entries that suggest it once existed in Ancestry a decade ago but not now!

See this 2011 YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwKGEmZ_B4s that explains how to find the Ancestry Historical Newspapers, Birth, Marriage, & Death Announcements, 1851-2003 but that is not now listed.

This URL https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/colle ... ?name=John searches for John in the Ancestry Historical Newspapers, Birth, Marriage, & Death Announcements, 1851-2003 but if you click Learn more about this database... Ancestry says We’re sorry, this page is no longer available.

This reinforces the importance of not relying on URL links and online collection titles that change at the whim of the online service provider.

[AdrianBruce]

... Are you sure it wasn’t Findmypast? ...

Interesting thought - I'm not sure at all. The circumstantial bits of evidence mention Ancestry and not FMP. On the other hand that would offer a reason why I can't find the stuff now on FMP (nothing like that collection name or the events concerned) - FMP lost its non-British Isles newspapers a few years ago. They'd licenced them from NewspaperArchive.com and presumably NA wanted too much $$$ to carry on.

Which then started some bells not exactly ringing but thumping. I managed to remember that there are 2 major subscription based newspaper sites in the US. Newspapers.com which is in the same group as Ancestry. And NewspaperArchive.com, which isn't.

I do have others articles linked (properly in source-records) to NewspaperArchive.com - they don't look like the format of my obscurely sourced scans (PDFs not JPEGs for one) but maybe I should go back to NA to check....

[AdrianBruce]

A Google search found the following entries that suggest it once existed in Ancestry a decade ago but not now!
...

Ah, thank you - not just a one-off mistake for me, then.

...
This reinforces the importance of not relying on URL links and online collection titles that change at the whim of the online service provider.

Indeed - these days I will usually stick the source deails in IPTC metadata in JPGs or PDF annotations. But then...

Rant warning - I really, really hate it when Record Offices and Archives put loads of really good documents up on their web-site that, three years later, can't be accessed because of link-rot.... You think they'd understand these things...

[Mal]

Adrian. I offer a possible glimmer of hope.

First, click on the URL link in Mike Tate's post. Then follow Steps 1 to 3 in the attachment, inputting your search criteria. Hopefully, a hyperlink will appear at Step 3.

If you can open the hyperlink in your Ancestry account, or Ancestry Library Edition, you will be back in business. I don't have access to Ancestry so I can't help.

[BillH]

I managed to remember that there are 2 major subscription based newspaper sites in the US. Newspapers.com which is in the same group as Ancestry. And NewspaperArchive.com, which isn't.

This is a bit off topic, but there is another good newspaper site for the US, GenealogyBank.com.

In my searching I have had more luck on GenealogyBank.com than on NewspaperArchive.com.

Bill

[AdrianBruce]

Adrian. I offer a possible glimmer of hope. ...

Malcolm - thank you for that. I could indeed bring up a browse facility. However, what you couldn't possibly have realised is that the glimmer of hope is so tiny that I'd need a James Webb Space Telescope to see what's going on.

Firstly, the useful takeways:

• Based on the format of the clipping images that come up, it's 99% clear to me that the barely sourced images I had saved, really were part of Ancestry's Historical Newspapers, Birth, Marriage, & Death Announcements, 1851-2003.
• Based on the options offered by Ancestry when browsing stuff, said Announcements were actually part of the BMD collections, not Newspaper collections.
• Unfortunately...
• When I follow Malcolm's suggestion, I end up with a browse of (say) some 800 article images from one year of the New York Times. And there is nothing on each image to identify each image or the order that they appear in. One suspects that they might be in chronological order, but...
• So you might want a report of a birth but you have no idea if it is in the NYT, no idea when if it is (not this way) and no idea how to find the report. Apart from that it's fine!

My suspicion is that this interface may have been replaced by multiple more specific collections, perhaps going through to Newspapers.com - but that really is just a guess. I may hack around a bit more to see if I can deduce the other collections.

[ADC65]

Have you thought about contacting Ancestry to see if they can help? I know it's a slim chance, but they might be able to confirm if the data is now behind a paywall, or covered in a different set.

[fhtess65]

I second this suggestion. Even if it's gone behind a paywall, at least you'll know. And if it's Newspapers.com you could do a 7 day free trial, pay for a subscription for the shortest period possible, or wait for a free weekend.

I feel your pain as I've also run across instances where I made brief reference to where I found the image, but didn't cite it fully and now no longer have access. Which is why I now obsessively save everything and back up to two different places frequently, as well as creating documents listing sources (as well as in FH).

Have you thought about contacting Ancestry to see if they can help? I know it's a slim chance, but they might be able to confirm if the data is now behind a paywall, or covered in a different set.

[Mal]

Adrian - my last idea.

While you are logged into your Ancestry account click on Mike Tate’s URL. This brings up the search results page for “John”. At the top left of the page, in the search area, click on the pencil icon to edit the search.

Delete “John” and add your specific search criteria. Refresh the search. Does this help?

[AdrianBruce]

... Delete “John” and add your specific search criteria. Refresh the search. Does this help?

Worth a try but - zero good matches - my suspicion, based on the "results", is that the indexes to this collection have been removed. When browsing the images , there are no symbols for indexes on the screen, above below or adjacent.

[mulhollandgj]

Hello Adrian,

Not sure if this helps you. I also had problems finding items I had previously accessed and saved from Ancestry's "Historical Newspapers, Birth, Marriage, & Death Announcements, 1851-2003".

The database seems to have been removed, however, if I click on the saved source in my Ancestry tree, the following appears and I can click on the view record or view image buttons and they are still available to view

Source citation for Historical Newspapers, Birth, Marriage, & Death Announcements, 1851-2003 screen capture

Source citation for Historical Newspapers, Birth, Marriage, & Death Announcements, 1851-2003 screen capture.JPG (46.23 KiB) Viewed 3235 times

Historical Newspapers, Birth, Marriage, & Death Announcements, 1851-2003 View Record Source screen capture.

Historical Newspapers, Birth, Marriage, & Death Announcements, 1851-2003 View Record Source screen capture.JPG (162.98 KiB) Viewed 3235 times

The New York Times was definitely part of the collection.

The Source tab :

Source Information
Ancestry.com. Historical Newspapers, Birth, Marriage, & Death Announcements, 1851-2003 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006.

Original data:

The New York Times. New York, NY, USA: The New York Times, 1851-2001.
The Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, CA, USA: The Los Angeles Times, 1881-1894.
The Boston Globe. Boston, MA, USA: The Boston Globe, 1872-1922.
The Chicago Defender. Chicago, IL, USA: The Chicago Defender, 1921-1975.
The Chicago Tribune. Chicago, IL, USA: The Chicago Tribune, 1850-1985.
The Hartford Courant. Hartford, CT, USA: The Hartford Courant, 1791-1942.
The Washington Post. Washington, D.C., USA: The Washington Post, 1877-1990.
The Atlanta Constitution. Atlanta, GA, USA: The Atlanta Constitution, 1868-1929.
Description
This database is a collection of birth, marriage, and death announcements from several major U.S. newspapers for a variety of years. Images of the original newspapers are included.

NB I can click on the bread crumbs of the item I saved :

Obituary > Los Angeles, California > 1918 > Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File), The

and manually change them to :

Obituary > New York, New York > [various years 1851-2003] > New York Times (1857-Current File)

and then scroll through the various images.

Historical Newspapers, Birth, Marriage, & Death Announcements, 1851-2003 View Image after bread crumb change screen capture

Historical Newspapers, Birth, Marriage, & Death Announcements, 1851-2003 View Image after bread crumb change screen capture.JPG (185.66 KiB) Viewed 3235 times

NB there are no images for 2007 ... Q. Is that the year of the record/image data or the year you accessed and saved the data?

I also note that there is a "Historical Newspapers Collection" which includes various separate newspaper databases

https://www.ancestry.com/search/categories/histnews/

I hope this helps you.
Geoff

[AdrianBruce]

Have you thought about contacting Ancestry to see if they can help? ...

I'm afraid I just lost the will to sit waiting for an Agent to answer the Chat. There is no ability any more to send them an email - you have to go through an online Chat Bot first (which seems not to have heard of Historical Record Searching) until the Bot gives up, then you get options for phone, online Chat, WhatsApp, etc, etc. And then wait....

So far as I can see, Newspapers.com doesn't have the New York Times after 1922 - it doesn't list the paper beyond those years, nor does a search show the stuff I once found.

newspaperarchive.com doesn't have the NYT beyond 1919 according to its lists.

GenealogyBank.com doesn't claim it beyond the 1870s!!! Nor do any searches find samples of what I previously found....

Given that the NYT has its own online archives, my working suspicion is that the 700lb gorilla that is the NYT faced off against the 700lb gorilla that is Ancestry - and won...

[AdrianBruce]

... I also had problems finding items I had previously accessed and saved from Ancestry's "Historical Newspapers, Birth, Marriage, & Death Announcements, 1851-2003". ...

The stuff that is de facto fossilised in your tree matches the stuff that I copied into FH, when I did properly source the first few images in 2007 - that's the year I accessed the data and saved the images. I do have some of the properly saved items in my Ancestry tree but I have created "external" sources referring to Ancestry, so they'd been lost at that point I guess.

[mulhollandgj]

Ok fair enough, I just thought that the bread crumbs might help you locate them again by scrolling through the images, like a microfim, and then you could save the link to your source citation.

[fhtess65]

I generally contact Ancestry via Facebook. Crista Cowan (Ancestry staff member) is a member of this group: Ancestry . Com - Helping, Sharing, Venting (Not an Official Ancestry Site) and generally answers if you tag her directly when you post to the group.

Have you thought about contacting Ancestry to see if they can help? ...

I'm afraid I just lost the will to sit waiting for an Agent to answer the Chat. There is no ability any more to send them an email - you have to go through an online Chat Bot first (which seems not to have heard of Historical Record Searching) until the Bot gives up, then you get options for phone, online Chat, WhatsApp, etc, etc. And then wait....

[AdrianBruce]

... I just thought that the bread crumbs might help you locate them again by scrolling through the images, like a microfim, and then you could save the link to your source citation.

Good idea in theory - unfortunately, there are something like 800 images in a set for a newspaper / year combination, and I don't have any fast way of getting to the images I once downloaded as I always rename the file to something useful. (Useful? Well, usually useful... )

[AdrianBruce]

I generally contact Ancestry via Facebook. ... Ancestry . Com - Helping, Sharing, Venting (Not an Official Ancestry Site) ...

Thanks - I shall try....

[Gowermick]

Adrian, coincidence or what? I just received an Obituary hint (for my mother!!, in their U.S., Newspapers.com™ Obituary Index, 1800s-current.
This hint came from Ancestry.com, and for those with a worldwide subscription (which I don’t have), so couldn’t follow it up. It does beg the question why my mum, who died in Essex, in 1995, should have an obituary in US paper

This recordset is for Obituaries, so perhaps they split their newspaper indexes into three separate indexes (Births, Marriages and Deaths) This could go someway to explain why their combined BMD index no longer exists.

[RS3100]

Adrian, coincidence or what? I just received an Obituary hint (for my mother!!, in their U.S., Newspapers.com™ Obituary Index, 1800s-current.
This hint came from Ancestry.com, and for those with a worldwide subscription (which I don’t have), so couldn’t follow it up. It does beg the question why my mum, who died in Essex, in 1995, should have an obituary in US paper

From my own experience, I would hazard a guess that she almost certainly doesn't, but someone with a similar name does.

I have had tens of those newspaper hints on Ancestry, and numerous other hints on MH, all for US individuals with similar names to my relatives, and as yet not a single one has proved to be applicable to my family.

Of course, if you do have US inhabitants in your tree, there is perhaps a greater likelihood that one may be correct sooner or later!

[David2416]

There are English newspapers on newspapers.com, 16 covering Essex 3 of which go past 1995. Not sure though how these would be referenced in Ancestry hints.

[RS3100]

There are English newspapers on newspapers.com, 16 covering Essex 3 of which go past 1995. Not sure though how these would be referenced in Ancestry hints.

UK and Ireland, Newspapers.com™ Obituary Index, 1800s-current according to the card catalogue.

[trevorrix]

Recently I have used WhatsApp to contact Ancestry. Quick helpful responses.
https://support.ancestry.co.uk/s/contactsupport/dna

[AdrianBruce]

I generally contact Ancestry via Facebook. Crista Cowan (Ancestry staff member) is a member of this group: Ancestry . Com - Helping, Sharing, Venting (Not an Official Ancestry Site) ...

Eventually my query caught Crista's eye (thanks for the suggestion) and her response was:

The individual newspaper titles in this database have all been reimaged and reindexed (using current technology instead of the old, clunky OCR technology that it was originally indexed with). They are available on Newspapers.com with the search functionality there that functions better with the type of searches needed to make discoveries in this type of record.
The existing database has been archived in such a way that those who had saved records from it can still click through to access them from their tree with their subscription. But, no new searches can be performed.

I thanked her and commented that, if the collection had been withdrawn, it had previously made no sense to me why it still hung around. But her explanation "archived in such a way that those who had saved records from it can still click through to access them from their tree with their subscription" makes eminent sense.

I also commented that I'm not certain that all those newspapers have been re-imaged - I was looking for 1930s and 40s New York Times entries and couldn't see any evidence that those years are on newspapers.com - but since those years will be in copyright and the NYT has its own archives which they'd quite like to charge us for ( ), I wouldn't be at all surprised if those NYTs aren't on newspapers.com. Then again, it could be that my searching and browsing of newspapers.com isn't good enough as I only use it on free days! (Basically I currently intensely dislike the search mechanisms on both Fold3 and Newspapers.com, since they are more like vague browses that you can refine somehow... Maybe if I paid money for continuous access, I'd get used to the search mechanism... No chance!!!! )