New Chicago newspaper database online

[smcarberry]

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

[ephorvitz]

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