By JULIE CARLE
BG Independent News
Often the stories of past relatives or local individuals are tucked away in newspaper accounts dating back as many as two centuries. Searching newspapers on microfilm was a tedious, if not next-to-impossible, task.
The process just became a whole lot easier thanks to the Wood County District Public Library and other Woodlink libraries’ decision to make the online Ohio Collection from newspapers.com database accessible remotely. The collection of digitized historical newspapers includes newspapers from all across Ohio with issues dating back to the early 1800s through 2021.
Harold Brown, a Wood County Genealogical Society member and an editor for the organization’s newsletter, spends a lot of time searching through newspapers. He looks for interesting tidbits for the newsletter and details of his many generations of Wood County ancestors.
He’s been trying to find information about his great uncle Simon Brown, who built several homes in Bowling Green, and some history about the Baird side of his family tree. He also looks stories that relate interesting facts about Wood County’s history.
Another genealogical society member, Millie Broka, has been researching family histories for her family and others for many years. She has spent hours looking at newspapers and other sources helping people identify ancestors and their stories.
Brown and Broka agree the online remote access to newspapers across the state makes the search process easier and more efficient. Searching on microfilm used to require knowing the newspaper, the date or location where the story appeared, and still having to scan through hundreds, if not thousands, of words to find the reference.
“If you didn’t know where it was, I might not be able to help people find their information,” said Marnie Pratt, local history librarian at Wood County District Public Library.
The database is searchable by key word, date, city or newspaper title, which makes it more likely to find related articles or information. The collection is accessible via the library’s reference website using your library account sign in or card barcode and PIN.
“You can do research in your pajamas while you sip your coffee,” Pratt said about the convenience of the new database.
The decision to subscribe to the Ohio Collection of newspapers started when the library was approached to use the microfilm files that the library owned of the Sentinel-Tribune.
“We sent the microfilm to newspapers.com (to be digitized) and initially had access to that for use in the library, but we wanted our patrons to be able to access it remotely,” Pratt explained.
The Woodlink Libraries partnered to subscribe to the website database.
Country Letters, one of the Sentinel’s previous sections that featured news from births and deaths to celebrations and local group’s meetings, is rich with information about people that might not show up in regular articles, Brown said.
“I’ve found obituaries in the Country Letters,” he said.
And if it’s not an obituary, it might be a list of who was in town for a person’s funeral, Broka said. “Country Letters really will help people find all kinds of things they won’t find otherwise.”.
“They will be able to find all kinds of cool tidbits that they couldn’t find before or finally uncover that story about a relative they were looking for,” Pratt added.
There is also the likelihood that researchers, whether looking for historical stories, family trees or other types of historical information, will find other stories that catch their eye.
Broka read a story she’d never heard in family lore about her grandfather’s hurt leg. She also recalled when she and her husband, Bob, were at the library looking at obituaries, she would have researched 10 obituaries while Bob had read one because he’d become engrossed in reading other stories on the same page.
Brown discovered a little-known fact that ice houses were known for catching on fire because of the sawdust “mortar” that was used was highly combustible.
Because Pratt is often doing research that someone has requested or looking for information to add stories to a program or presentation, she frequently sees articles or facts that are interesting. Instead of taking the time to delve into the interesting fact, she drops a note with the information into her “Odd Stories” folder.
“Maybe one of these days I’ll do a whole program just on those odd stories I’ve found,” she said.
There are sometimes a few glitches in the searches when the microfilm didn’t copy the newsprint clearly, and there are blanks where some of the search terms might have been included.
The collection includes the entire run of the Sentinel-Tribune as well as the Wood County Weekly Sentinel and the Perrysburg Journal. Researchers of all kinds—genealogists, historians, students and even lawyers, Pratt said—are likely to find the database useful, especially since the research is not limited to Wood County.
Pratt said quite a few local organizations are utilizing the tool for researching their own history, especially as they approach milestone anniversaries. “We even had a car dealership looking for old ads from the 1960s,” Pratt said.
The beauty of the database being accessible from home or work means everyone can do their own research. “It’s more than the dates and names on the family tree; you now have the leaves, the stories that go around the branches on the family tree. That’s the really fun part,” Pratt said.
Individuals who need help can reach out to Pratt and the other reference librarians, she said. They are available to offer assistance on how to access the tool or to suggest various ways to do the searches. For more information, call 419-352-5050 or email woodref@wcdpl.org.
