Hello, Because of graduating from the University of Chicago, I have an account with Proquest. I do not know much about what Proquest is. Do any of you know, and do you know whether it has any usefulness for genealogy research? Thanks for any insight. Joan Schaefer

ProQuest offers dozens of databases, and libraries subscribe to various bundles or individual products. How useful they can be depends on which subscriptions a given library has purchased. Some are designed for Business, or Medical, or Science/Technology, which would have limited use unless you are searching for someone who was prominent in one of those worlds. I have found the Newspaper databases to be extremely useful - especially the ones that deal with "historical" papers (generally going back into the 19th century). But even the regular newspaper databases usually go back several decades; I have found lots of obits & other info on my relatives from this type of db. I visited the U of C Library's site to see what they offered. I could only go so far without an account. But the Quick Links on the newspaper article research pages included NY Times from 1857, Chicago Tribune from 1849, Washington Post from 1877, Boston Globe from 1872, LA Times from 1887, and Times of London from 1785. Looks like a goldmine to me! Even if your ancestors lived in NONE of those cities, you can still find interesting info. Newspapers often copied stories, & even obits if the deceased had relatives or friends in another city. You can also find lots of social history background info to enrich your research. One of my favorite random searches when I get access to an historical db is ("New Orleans" AND "yellow fever"). Or NO & hurricane; or NO & murder, or bootleggers, or prostitution. Sometimes you have to think creatively, and find search terms to match the language of the day. For prostitution, for example, they may have used such terms as bordello, disorderly house, bawdy house, etc. Most newspaper databases are "read" by OCR software, and this leads to many errors. Often, I have searched for one of my surnames and come up with nothing wonderful. But then I can find exactly what I'm looking for by being specific about the date (day after date of death, for example). Sometimes it helps to search for a surname with lots of "wildcards" to allow for misspellings or OCR or indexing errors. (e.g., for one of my unusual surnames, Voegelin, I might search for "Vo*g*l*n" - which brings up different forms of the name, such as Voglin, Vogelin, Voegelen, etc.) Often, you are given an option to view all the pages of an issue. So if you search for some general term (dead or accident or fire, etc.) on a specific date, you can then peruse the whole paper for the day. That technique has helped me locate obits or news stories that I have a reliable date for. These newspaper databases are extremely expensive, with the subscription cost usually based on the service population that would have access to it. I suspect they also vary by region of the country, but I have no real data on that. Sometimes we can have access through being a registered student or alumnus of a university, being a member of an historical or genealogical society or archive, or through our local public library or state library. But if you are lucky enough to have access, you should treasure it - and use it often. ONE CAVEAT: Be very careful about your login information. Some years ago, an enthusiastic genealogist in (I think) Ohio generously posted her library card number on a genealogy discussion board, to share access with fellow researchers. At the time, the state library had had a blanket subscription for all the libraries in the state. But when the company involved discovered the shared access number, they cancelled the subscriptions for the entire state. So please, don't post your info anywhere! Happy hunting! Kathleen, in Connecticut, by way of New Orleans ----- Original Message ----- From: Joan Schaefer <joan_f_schaefer@sbcglobal.net> To: laorlean@rootsweb.com Sent: Tue, 17 Jul 2012 17:30:43 -0000 (UTC) Subject: [LAORLEAN] Proquest Hello, Because of graduating from the University of Chicago, I have an account with Proquest. I do not know much about what Proquest is. Do any of you know, and do you know whether it has any usefulness for genealogy research? Thanks for any insight. Joan Schaefer ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to LAORLEAN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message