The Newspapers Stories and Events Index, Adding 16 Billion Records to Ancestry.com

by Suzan Younger

The annual RootsTech conference is the primary venue to announce major genealogical news and products. For the past three years, most genealogists took part in the conference virtually numbering in a staggering three million people at each conference. The latest conference was February 29 through March 2, 2024. As in the past, there were amazing announcements at RootsTech 2024.

The best part of RootsTech is you can still access classes and presentations offered at RootsTech 2021 through RootsTech 2024 at no cost to you. There are limited presentations for 2019-2020. The on-demand library includes hundreds of classes and presentations from the last four RootsTech conferences. It’s a great opportunity to catch up on genealogy news and get information about future products and records.

At RootsTech 2024, Crista Cowan from Ancestry.com updated information on a spectacular record collection that has over 16 billion records. Yes, that is billion with a “b.” Beginning in the fall of 2022 and throughout 2023, Ancestry.com applied AI (artificial intelligence) technology to the Newspapers.com database to mine stories and events on individuals. This collection is called The Newspapers Stories and Events Index. Besides births, deaths, and marriages, the index includes links to stories about our ancestor’s everyday lives that appeared in their local newspapers. Please note that Ancestry extracted the index from the newspapers on the Newspapers.com website. It does not include all newspapers.

The Ancestry.com description of the database says that the index may include name, inferred residence place, inferred residence date, publication date, publication place and newspaper title.

Ancestry tags the information with these topics. You can search by name, location and by topic.

Ancestry’s global search does not include the information in this index because of its size. There are three ways to access the information.

1. Through Ancestry hints
2. By accessing the individual state databases in the card catalog. Go to the search tab, click on card catalog and type in the collection’s name in the title search box. Example: Nebraska, U.S., Newspapers.com Stories and Events Index, 1800’s-current. Use any state in place of Nebraska.
3. Go to ancestry.com/c/newspapers to access the recently added search page “Life and times in the U.S.” You can search by state or territory (and then by person) and by category.
4. The index entry has a link to the newspaper article in Newspapers.com. This requires a subscription to ancestry.com. The Dallas public library offers free access to ancestry.com at its downtown location in the genealogy section and at all of its branch libraries. Check with your local library for access to ancestry.com if you are not in Dallas.

Crista Cowan gives background and up-to-date information about the index collection in the YouTube video “What’s new at Ancestry in 2024”.

Her presentation on The Newspapers Stories and Events Index begins at approximately the 29:20-minute time stamp. Crista’s presentation is an excellent introduction to this collection.

Here are two examples of the treasures you might find in the index. The topic for these entries is “Human Interest.”

1. From the Beaver Valley Tribune (Beaver City, Furnas, Nebraska), 7 July 1899:
   Mrs. S.S. Hewitt and daughter Dot, left on Friday, of last week, to join Mr. Hewitt at Turret, Colo., and they will pass their summer vacation enjoying the cool breezes of the mountains.
   • This places Mrs. S. S. Hewitt and daughter in Beaver City, NE in July 1899.
   • It gives her daughter’s name (in this case, nickname).
   • It implies this couple has only one child.
   • It locates S. S. Hewitt in Turret, Colorado in July 1899.
   • It implies that the family is not living together because the visit is for the summer only.
   • Additional research in the database said Mrs. Hewitt worked as a schoolteacher and this supports that information by limiting the visit as a summer vacation.
   • The town of Turret, Colorado, no longer exists, but this locates the town in the Colorado mountains. Additional research about Turret showed it was a mining town.

2. From the Beaver Valley Tribune (Beaver City, Furnas, Nebraska) 1 Sep 1899:
   Mrs. S. S. Hewitt and Miss Dot returned from their visit in Turret, Colo., last Saturday.
   • This supports the information that Mrs. S. S. Hewit and her daughter are living in Beaver City, Nebraska, while S. S. Hewitt remains in Turret, Colorado. It implies they are not living together as a family.

With just a few sentences from an 1899 newspaper published in the small rural town of Beaver City, Furnas County, Nebraska, we can learn a lot about the Hewitt family dynamics. It adds to the family‘s time line and gives us clues for additional research about the mining town of Turret, Colorado, and why S. S. Hewitt lived there and for how long. The database’s information that Mrs. Hewitt was a schoolteacher provides clues for new research about her. What treasures await your search of The Newspapers Stories and Events Index?

Here are links to the RootsTech website that may interest you.

1. RootsTech 2024 rootstech.org
2. In the upper right-hand corner of the home page, click on the Watch Videos button.
3. Click on the Search Videos button to have options to filter your searches. This takes you to the Search the On-Demand Library page.
4. The left-hand side of the page has suggested filters that allow you to limit your searches by content type, language, speaker, sponsor or exhibitor, or by RootsTech year.