When we search historical newspapers, we've all been frustrated by the dearth of hits resulting from searching our common Irish names. One way around this, is to search by a street address. The best tip I can give you is to format the street address the same way that other addresses appear in that specific newspaper. Then enter "exact search." The words street, avenue, etc were not capitalized,in historical newspapers as proper proper nouns are today. So, a search would look something like this > "395 East 42nd street" Some newspapers did not spell out words like East and West, but used abbreviations WITH a period, OR without a period, like this> "395 E. 42nd street" and "395 E 42nd street" Further, some older newspapers dropped the "n" in the "-nd" following "42nd" so this same address may appear as> "395 E. 42d street" My suggestion is to try each of these address styles when searching historical newspapers, you are bound to get less hits than when tracking John Burke. Guaranteed! Barb

Hi Barb, and all, Spot on info about searching street addresses, and entering the search exactly as the newspaper was wont to. You do have to watch that the format wasn't changed by a newspaper consolidating with the one across town. A new management of the same newspaper might also prompt a change in style. Best bet is to read the letters and not the words, as a proofreader might, staying alert to capitals and abbreviations. (As I fail to do about half the time.) Jack Langton -----Original Message----- From: mizscarlettny via <[email protected]> To: NY-IRISH <[email protected]>; NYNEWYOR <[email protected]>; nybrooklyn <[email protected]> Sent: Fri, Jun 26, 2015 1:42 am Subject: [NYNEWYOR] Newspaper searching? When we search historical newspapers, we've all been frustrated by the dearth of hits resulting from searching our common Irish names. One way around this, is to search by a street address. The best tip I can give you is to format the street address the same way that other addresses appear in that specific newspaper. Then enter "exact search." The words street, avenue, etc were not capitalized,in historical newspapers as proper proper nouns are today. So, a search would look something like this > "395 East 42nd street" Some newspapers did not spell out words like East and West, but used abbreviations WITH a period, OR without a period, like this> "395 E. 42nd street" and "395 E 42nd street" Further, some older newspapers dropped the "n" in the "-nd" following "42nd" so this same address may appear as> "395 E. 42d street" My suggestion is to try each of these address styles when searching historical newspapers, you are bound to get less hits than when tracking John Burke. Guaranteed! Barb ************************************* Jim Garrity, List Administrator [email protected] ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message