Bruce Remick wrote: > SmallTownPapers® Collection - Discover your ancestors like never before.the > people, places and events as reported in real time in their local newspaper. > World Vital Records was selected to provide access to this archive of > exclusive newspaper content, not available from any other genealogy source! > This gives you access to a completely searchable digital archive that > features small-town newspapers back to 1846. They currently offer nearly 1 > million pages from this unique archive, and are adding more than 100,000 > pages each month! NOT to throw-off on either Godfrey or the newspaper collection, but as a reality-check: Smalltown papers generally ran to being a 4-pg paper. Open up a copy of the Washington POST or the New York TIMES or the SF CHRONICAL, remove one sheet of paper. That's a 4-page newspaper. Pg 1 was generally one national-level story occupying the column on the free edge, perhaps a regional level blurb half or less of the column beside it, and --until roughly 1900-- advertisements. Pg 2 was the masthead, editorials, some what we now know as op-eds, perhaps a letter to the editor, and whatever else filled up the space --travel, religion, education; generally, very few ads on this page. Pg 3 was where the Personals/truly local news appeared. Even there, as much as 2 columns of the 6 were classifieds. Pg 4 was mostly ads -- some display, some classified-- with sometimes 6 or 8 inches of non-advertising quite often a morality tale for the edification of Young Minds. pp 2 and 4 were _more_ likely to have items of local interest (i.e., the gossip columns) after an election issue, or after the county budget/audit for the year were printed as each of those filled two pages of their issue, pushing most other stuff into the next issue. OTOH, what you find in those 3 columns per issue can be PRICELESS in many ways. (g) Cheryl (Whose experience with small town newspapers includes extracting 50yrs worth of one.)