Discovering Gems

by Gretchen Beilfuss Witt


    Genealogical research often consists of looking at many types of records:  marriage, land, court, will and probate. While searching records in the History Room can yield ample information about a family’s vital statistics, sometimes a story or two helps fill in the gaps and gives a greater understanding and more in-depth picture of the family history.  Newspaper articles are a great resource for finding those stories and RPL has just the place to start.  Recently, “Newspapers.com North Carolina Collection” was added to the databases available for genealogical and general research.    This collection includes portions of the Salisbury Evening Post and The Carolina Watchman as well as newspapers from nearby towns like Mocksville, Mooresville, Lexington, Cooleemee, and Statesville and across the entire state. 
    The database can be accessed from several points.   From the library’s main webpage select History and Genealogy, once on the History Room page look to the right hand side where the Online Genealogy Resources are listed, scroll to the bottom of the list and select “Historic North Carolina Digital Newspaper Collection.”  This link goes through NCLIVE directly to the Newspaper.com collection.  Alternately, selecting NCLIVE through the ebranch link and then choosing “Genealogy and Historical Maps” or “Journals” will also provide access to the newspaper collection. 
    Once in the collection, searching can be accomplished in a variety of ways.   Selecting the “Search” tab pulls up a search box where specific terms can be entered.   The results can often be quite broad; a search can then be narrowed by changing the date parameters or choosing specific titles.  Opting for the “Browse” tab yields a list of North Carolina cities and then a listing of titles.  “Clippings” tab provides a location in which searches and articles can be saved to an account and accessed later.  This account is free to set up and is associated with an email address.   Selecting the “papers by location” link will pull up a map showing the cities and towns in North Carolina that have newspapers in the collection.  A “location pin” marking each city will also indicate the number of newspapers available.  Clicking on the pin will give a list of the newspapers as well.   Make the selections and begin to search.  
Choosing “The Spencer Crescent” and then searching on “fire company” yielded a plethora of articles concerning the fire department of Spencer and firemen working for the Southern Railroad, including an article August 19, 1909 in which a large meeting was held to approve the purchase of a horse driven hose truck for the Spencer fire department.  Selecting just a specific name in the search box, Leonard Lee Readling, produced 111 options, one of which was an article in the “Yadkin Valley Herald” in September of 1917 presenting a list of men exempted from the army.   Once an article is found, it can be printed, emailed, clipped and saved, or shared to Ancestry.  Choosing the print icon allows printing of the entire page or just a portion of the page; items can also be saved as JPGs or PDFs.  The envelope icon indicates the article can be downloaded, shared via Facebook, Twitter, embedded or just emailed.   The website also offers some short tutorials on how to best utilize the site.   As with all databases provided through NCLIVE, the database can be accessed from home with a library card and pin number or at one of the library branches.   Dive in and explore the historic newspapers of North Carolina and find those stories.