A Day in the Life
Newspapers can colorize your ancestors’ lives, telling you almost anything about the time period in which they lived. Last month I found and scrapbooked the 1930 census image for Betty Arschen, my grandmother. From this image, I learned that in April 1930, Betty was twenty-one years old, living with her parents in the Bronx, and working as a clerk in a dress shop. Her family rented their home for sixty dollars a month and owned a radio.
This month I searched the newspapers to find out more about life in 1930. I limited this search to April 15, 1930, the date that the census enumerator came to Betty’s house (this date is written at the top of her census image).
Because Betty was a clerk at a dress shop, I thought that she might have been interested in fashion. I typed “fashion” into the keyword box, clicked “search,” and was presented with a list of search results from newspapers across the United States. (See below for detailed instructions on how to do this.) Among the results, I found numerous examples of ads and articles about fashion.
One of my favorite ads featured Anita Page, a popular movie star at the time, who says that to be fascinating you must use Lux Soap because it will give you soft, clear skin. Other headlines and images on this page included “Dots Add Smashing Smartness to the Tailored Blue Suit,” “Things to Know about Vegetables,” and “Styles and Patterns.”
I found more articles by searching on the following keywords:
- Census
- Wages/Employment
- Health/Beauty
- Love
- Entertainment/Radio/Movies
- Cars/Automobiles
For your scrapbook pages, you can use these and many other keywords, including:
Government/Congress/President/Elections
- Religion
- Finance/Economy
- Television/Movie stars/Theater
- Sports/sporting events
- Culture
- Horoscopes
- Dancing/Dances
- Festivals/Celebrations/Holidays
- Pets/Animals
- Well-known events (1906 San Francisco earthquake, D-Day)
I can expand my search to be a week in Betty’s life, a month in her life, a year in her life. Or I can compare life in 1930 with life in 1940. Or I can compare my grandma’s life at 21 in 1930, my mom’s life at 21 in 1968, and my life at 21 in 1988. The possibilities are endless.
How to Search
Once you have ideas on what to search for, you’ll need to know how to search. The following instructions walk you through, step by step, how to search for newspaper articles.
1. Log into Ancestry.com and click on “Search Records” tab.
2. On right side of the Search Records page, you’ll see a box labeled “More Records.” Scroll down to “Newspapers & Periodicals” and click on the link “Historical Newspaper Collection.” You’ll be taken to a search screen for the newspaper collection.
3. Enter desired information into this search screen. Hint: Not every newspaper for every city is in this collection. Try broader keyword searches (like those described above) to find the most success.
a. Use first and last name to see if the collection contains articles on your ancestor.
b. Limit the newspapers searched in by entering a newspaper title or location. (Hint: For more search results, do not limit by location.)
c. Limit the time frame by entering a specific day, month, and/or year.
d. Use keywords to search for a broad range of topics.
4. Click on Search. You will be presented with a list of matches in various newspapers for the keywords on the days indicated.
5. Click on one of these matches, and you’ll be taken to a page that gives you additional information for that search result.
6. Click on the keywords again to view the image. If you don’t have a subscription to the newspaper collection, you won’t be able to access these images. (If you are using Internet Explorer as your browser, you may be asked to download the image viewer, accept this download as it enables you to view the image at optimal performance. Otherwise, you can zoom in and out with other browsers.)
7. You will be taken to the image of the newspaper, the term you searched on may be highlighted.
8. Print or Save the image by clicking on the appropriate icons, shown below.
9. Search again for different newspapers or terms.
