Information in U.S. public libraries can be so voluminous that I can well imagine it is a quandary for library administrators to decide what particular portion of the total collection to put online. The Chicago Public Library has made a good choice for Irish descendants, because its new newspaper database, the Chicago Examiner for years 1908 - 1918, has well over a hundred Clare-born decedents written up in articles, mostly death notices (which are brief) but many of which name an exact Clare location or parish. I saw many references to Kilrush and Killard (once spelled Kilard). The surname and place name spellings are very good, except for Carrigaholt, which I saw as Carrigahoth. I used "Clare Ireland" as a search term so I avoided that difficulty.
While many of the articles concerned Illinois residents, this particular newspaper regularly had a column for out-of-town deaths, so it is possible to find out information on Clare-born decedents who lived in San Francisco, New York City, etc.
I also often saw the request made that newspapers in other named cities carry a report of the death, meaning that the decedent's family knew that relatives were living in those other parts of the country or world.
Here is the link:
http://digital.chipublib.org/cdm4/search.php
I suggest using that exact link, because finding the text search function for this database while using the main page for the database is difficult.
Happy hunting,
Sharon Carberry
New Chicago newspaper database online
Moderators: Clare Support, Clare Past Mod
-
- Posts: 1285
- Joined: Fri Mar 30, 2007 4:31 pm
- Location: USA
Re: New Chicago newspaper database online
for newspapers all over the United States - check out the Library of Congress online - they are placing all their historic newspapers online - so keep checking back to see what has been posted www.loc.gov