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October 2011 Newsletter

GenealogyBank Adds 24 Million Records in October!

We constantly add more newspapers and obituaries to our online archive. Currently, GenealogyBank features over 5,700 newspapers from all 50 states, with more than 206 million obituaries and death records. Here are some details about our most recent additions (we actually added new content to thousands of titles, but the following is a representative sample): a total of 106 titles from 31 states. We've shown the date ranges so that you can determine if the new content is relevant to your personal research.

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The Saga of Josephine Ormsby

Her life is not taught in history classes. No one is writing a book about her. Yet the saga of Josephine Ormsby reminds us of the power and allure of genealogy: discovering and preserving the stories of ordinary people—because those stories, those lives, those people, were remarkable in their own ways then, and are still full of meaning for us today. Josephine Ormsby's story is preserved in seven short paragraphs of a newspaper article printed 110 years ago.

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The Best Advice? Simplify!

With the digitization of newspapers and government records, combined with powerful search engines, online research has opened exciting new possibilities for people exploring their family history with a computer and Internet access. But there's one common mistake these researchers often make: when using a search form, they fill in as many fields as they can (first name, middle initial, place of residence, etc.) thinking that the more information they give the search engine, the more accurate the returns will be. In many cases, however, this is the wrong approach to take.

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Halloween 'Tricks'—One Subtle, the Other a Blast

In America, the Halloween tradition of "trick or treat" has been going on since at least the early years of the 20th Century. Usually, people are happy to bestow treats of candy on the children who come to their door. Some people refuse to be charitable, however, and risk receiving a "trick" (prank) from the children for their failure to bestow a "treat." Trees and bushes wrapped in toilet paper, smashed pumpkins, and tipped-over garbage cans are common tricks. Sometimes, as the following two newspaper articles show, the tricks are more carefully planned, or can have greater consequences.

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GenealogyBank Celebrates Its 5th Anniversary!

On October 18, GenealogyBank will celebrate its 5th Anniversary. When the website launched five years ago it offered 160 million articles, primarily from its core collection of 2,000 historical newspapers. We have been adding material to our site ever since, including more newspapers, obituary collections, government records, and historical books and documents. Today, GenealogyBank now offers more than one billion articles and genealogical records, primarily from its core collection of over 5,700 historical newspapers. To see the title list for our newspaper collection, click here.

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