Family History Fanatics
3 min
Updated: Jan 22, 2021
Do you want to quickly access newspaper articles featuring the marriage of your ancestors? Today I'm going to show you out to access the new Newspapers.com Index on Ancestry.com so that you can find really cool newspaper articles about your ancestor’s marriage, and finally know the ‘rest’ of the story."
In the fall of 2020, Ancestry released a searchable index that is hyper-focused on the marriage articles found in Newspapers.com.
Now, I have blog posts that feature newspaper keyword combinations that can help search Newspapers.com directly for vital events, including marriages. These include:
Explore the Social Life of Your Ancestors Using Old Newspapers
Traveling Ancestors: Using Newspapers to Follow Your Relatives' Movements
From Birth to Death: Researching Your Ancestor's Vital Events Using Newspapers
What’s really cool about this collection on Ancestry, is that they have used machine learning to index newspaper articles so that you can easily attach them to your family tree.
On the Newspapers.com Marriage Record Index, you’ll see that Ancestry provides details about the marriage including dates and places. However, the best part is that Ancestry create a hyperlink to "flip the view" of the record for the following individuals:
Each spouse
Parents if identified
Siblings if identified
When you click on each person, you’ll see their relationship to the others named in the document.
For instance, if a parent is named, you'll see the parent's name, their child's name but not necessarily the spouse and their relatives.
This means you can attach this one item to each person on your tree and the index will reconfigure so that they’re the central person.
Family History Writer's Tip: I attach every record that identifies someone in my tree to that person. It REALLY helps when you start writing ancestor stories to know all the records that identify them.
Watch this video to see how to use the Newspapers.com Marriage Index on Ancestry.
You can access the collection’s search form from the following link:
Newspapers.com Marriage Index, 1800s-1999
You can also access the marriage index using the Ancestry Card Catalog: To do that:
Click on "Card Catalog" in the Search dropdown menu
Type "Newspapers" in the title field
Click "Search"
Select the Newspapers.com Marriage Index, 1800s-1999
When you do this search, you might also see the U.S., Newspapers.com Obituary
Index, 1800s-current, which I featured in this video.
trying to learn about a new collection
working on a brick wall and want to research this specific collection
not receiving hints.
You will also see hints to Ancestry's Newspapers.com Marriage Index, 1800s-1999 when you look at the profile of an ancestor or from your master tree hint list. Don't you just love letting Ancestry do the heaving lifting for you?
As shown in the video above, you can quickly search the Marriage Index to see if the collection could have entries for your ancestors.
On Ancestrys'Newspapers.com Marriage index search page, type in a location in either the "Lived In" or "Marriage" location fields.
Click search and then review the Publication Place for your location.
How to Access the Newspaper.com Marriage Index on Ancestry
There are a number of questions that are commonly asked about the new newspaper marriage index. Here are the answers I gathered from the Ancestry.com team.
Who can view this index?
Only Ancestry subscribers with the US or World membership can view the index
Who can view the Newspaper marriage images?
To view the actual image you have to have a Newspaper.com subscription along with your Ancestry Subscription. Be sure to the link in the video description box to learn about the latest subscription packages.
Why aren’t my ancestors in the Newspapers.com Marriage Index 1800s-1999 on Ancestry?
Currently, the marriage index only features US newspapers. Indexes for other countries will be added to Ancestry in the coming year.
Or, the initial release of the Newspapers.com Marriage Index has not covered all the papers in its collection. Check back often for updates.
Or, Newspapers.com does not have access to the papers you're ancestors were in. Perhaps the company will add your location's paper to its collection in the future. T
Or, your ancestor didn't have their marriage announced in the news.
Newspapers have a wealth of information for you to find your ancestors and understand their world. Continue learning how to research in newspapers for genealogy.