When researching your family tree do not overlook the newspaper published or circulated in the district during the time frame of your investigation. In the 19th and early 20th centuries there were many newspapers, both city and provincial, whose columns were packed with local jottings and reports on the day to day life of the local inhabitants as well as on those residents who had long since left the district. From births deaths and marriages to court cases, from accidents to involvement in local associations, the information can be illuminating and of great assistance in compiling a clearer history of  your forebears and the times in which they lived.

While indexing provincial newspapers we have re-discovered reports that, to the family researcher, are of immeasurable assistance. In the case of obituaries and reports of anniversaries such as golden weddings, there are some that detail in great depth, the persons life in Australia, their marriage, their children, when and on what ship they arrived in the colony, who their parents were and where they lived in the old country - a goldmine to any family historian. Of course there are others that just give the barest of details, its all a matter of luck, but that is the thrill of research, you never know what is on the next page.

During a recent conversation with a family historian, who believed their ancestor spent his whole life farming, and as far as they knew had never left the district, we were able to lead them to references in local newspapers, and, this researcher was more than pleased to find that the grandfather had not always worked on the farm as assumed, but had travelled to the Golden West in pursuit of gold. He later tried unsuccessfully to enlist in Western Australia for service in South African (Boer War), so in the pursuit of adventure and service to Queen and country, he paid his own passage to South Africa and enlisted there. Thus a whole new panorama was opened up to the researcher - solely as a result of referring to newspaper reports of the day. This type of information expands family history from just a list of people and dates by putting meat on the bones.

The surprises hidden away in old newspapers for family historians are endless. For example, while indexing the Wingham Chronicle and the Manning River Times recently we found the following articles, and if they were your family, these articles would make your day.
 

The Manning River Times newspaper of June 9, 1906....

San Francisco Earthquake : Miss McKay, daughter of Angus McKay, of Purfleet, (south of Taree) was in San Francisco during the recent terrible catastrophe, and a letter has been received by her relatives, dated April 21, conveying the gratifying intelligence that she escaped injury. Miss McKay writes .... I am very, very thankful, by Gods great mercy, to be alive and well, and able to write and tell you about the awful calamity that has befallen the gay city of San Francisco. I was living in one of the hotels up Market-street, in Third-street, and was awakened by the bed rocking violently. .... With the shock, the lights had all gone out, water was dripping down, and the folks were calling out, to hurry out of the building, as it might fall in. .... The houses were all blazing to the tops of the buildings. I could feel my face scorching with the heat as I ran. As luck would have it, the ship Sonoma was lying at the wharf. I reached the ship in an exhausted condition, my hands were all scratched and bleeding, but in the excitement I never noticed them. .... We are anchored out in the bay, have crowds of people aboard. It would make your heart ache to hear the heartrending cries of folks looking for friends, wondering whether they are alive or dead. The Government is posting these letters, as nearly everyone is penniless.
 

In the Wingham Chronicle newspaper of January 14, 1914, is the following extract taken from the Eastern Telegraph newspaper, Dungog....

Sad Wedding : On Wednesday last a wedding, under sad circumstances, eventuated at Glen Oak, when a Mr. Hodges and Miss Salmon, were married. The evening prior to the wedding day, Miss Salmon ate some ice cream and contracted peritonitis. She insisted on the ceremony being performed and as it proceeded she could hardly make the necessary responses. The following day, sad to say, the young bride passed away. The sad occurrence has caused profound regret in the neighbourhood, as the young lady had many friends.
 

Many editors of provincial newspapers seem to have had a great interest in history. One such editor was Frederick Arthur Fitzpatrick of the Wingham Chronicle newspaper who had started his career with his brother on the Windsor and Richmond Gazette newspaper. F. A. Fitzpatrick in 1914, published a book Peeps Into The Past which was reprinted in 1986 by the Manning Valley Historical Society, as it is such an important historical record. In the tribute in the reprinted book, the society notes of F. A. Fitzpatrick .... He was an astute observer of contempory social history, collecting and recording many of his observations and reminiscences of the early residents of the district.
Thankfully for todays researchers this interest in history by Fitzpatrick and other newspaper editors obviously influenced their journalism, which is probably not so surprising, as current affairs in one time frame becomes history years later.
 

Apart from articles that are of great interest to family historians, there are unexpected articles that inspire history buffs, like this one tucked away in the Wingham Chronicle of March 1, 1916. ....

First Graveyard : Workmen engaged on the site of the old Newcastle markets, where a theatre is now being erected, unearthed a coffin plate, nearly 100 years old. It bore the inscription .... Susannah Brazeley, died March 19, 1816, aged six days. .... This is further evidence that the site was the first Newcastle graveyard, of which, however, there appears to be no official record.

And another in the Manning River Times of March 8, 1913. ....

Historical Society : Mr. E. McC. S. Hill, Fellow of the Society for Genealogists, London, suggests the formation of a genealogical society in New South Wales. The object will be the preservation of such records as would connect the present generation with the old pioneer families of the country.

Many newspapers, both city and regional, are available on micro film at local, state and national libraries and many historical and family history societies hold some of these micro films as part of their resources. But we are now a society that wants its information instantly, and many people want to be able to locate a particular article on their ancestor, locality, or  event, immediately - not after countless hours of fruitless reading through old newspapers - and that is where indexing of newspapers shines through. Many societies and researchers have completed useful indexes to many newspapers and journals. Some indexes are works referring to specific subjects within a newspaper such as only Births, Deaths and Marriages, other indexes relate to specific geographical areas covered in that publication, while yet others encompass the whole of the newspaper. Whatever the parameters of the index, they are all of great assistance and can instantly let the researcher know the location of the article they are seeking, and just as importantly, it will tell them, also, when searching is futile. The value of these resources are highlighted by the many newspapers indexed, especially over that past 30 years, with the proliferation of the home computer. If you are looking for a project that is of assistance to others, then indexing newspapers can be most enjoyable and produces something that is of immeasurable value to others.

With the introduction of the  Australian  Cooperative Digitisation Project 1840-45, undertaken by the University of Sydney Library, the State Library of NSW, Monash University Library and the National Library, the area of researching mid 19th. century newspapers has been brought right into the home of the researcher via the internet.

The web page on the internet  <http://www.nla.gov.au/ferg/datebrws.html> gives a full listing of the newspapers already digitised - some of those titles are, The Hunter River Gazette,  Maitland Mercury,  Adelaide Independent, Dispatch (Sydney), Geelong Advertiser, Launceston Courier, Melbourne Courier, Melbourne Times, Odd Fellows' magazine (Adelaide), Parramatta Chronicle & Cumberland Advertiser, Swan River News and Western Australian Chronicle, just to name a few - There are dozens of other titles. Of these newspapers, Rod and Wendy Gow have indexed and produced on micro fiche the Hunter River Gazette, the first provincial newspaper in what is now NSW, which was based in Maitland and published between December 1841 and June 1842, and have indexed the first four years (1843 to 1846) of the Maitland Mercury, which was first published in January 1843 and is still being published 159 years later. They have also indexed the Parramatta Chronicle & Cumberland Advertiser 1843 to 1845.

Armed with an index it is a very simple task to download the particular page of the newspaper that you require and read it at your leisure off line. The downloads are read via Acrobat Reader, which is also available free for download on the internet.

The Maitland Mercury has been digitised as part of the above project from its first edition in 1843 through to December 1855, and its columns are full of goodies for the researcher. Do not make the mistake that the Maitland Mercury is a newspaper devoted solely to information on the Maitland or Hunter River area. This newspaper, from its inception, was the main provincial NSW newspaper of its day and devoted much of its space to reports from right across Australia, with correspondence from many of the main cities and country districts. It featured regular reports from Bathurst, Berrima, Geelong, Goulburn, Hobart, Illawarra, Launceston, Moreton Bay, New England, New Zealand, Parramatta, Port Phillip, South Australia, Sydney, Van Diemen's Land, Western Australia, and Windsor, to name just a few. Anything that was newsworthy, thankfully for us researchers, got a start in its columns. And, from 1846, the Maitland Mercury featured passenger lists to shipping arrivals and departures in Sydney and other ports. This is of great benefit to researchers who have been searching for information on unassisted shipping passengers who were in the category of swam here as well as to those tracing their ancestors movements around the colony.

Great praise is due to those visionaries who had the wisdom and foresight to realise the immense historical value of newspapers. Thankfully they did not regard them as tomorrows fish and chip wrappers but collected, hoarded and collated the old newspapers, which enabled others, in the fullness of time, to have them micro filmed for the enlightenment of generations to come.

Newspapers are a great source to the family historian that should not be overlooked, with digitised newspapers, comprehensive indexes and the internet, the quest of finding that extra piece of elusive information on your ancestor is becoming that much more simple and far less time consuming.