Advantage Archives

Photo by Iñaki del Olmo on Unsplash

​I’ve found that it pays to revisit sites. I recently explored the North Dakota Historic site again, looking at newspapers. I was pleasantly surprised to find that in addition to those newspapers that were digitized via Chronicling America, there is another option  Advantage Archives. Let’s look.

Even though I’ve leveraged several sources for newspapers in my area, I was able to find some neat articles that referenced my family. For example, I learned that one set of great-great grandparents traveled back to Wisconsin for a long visit with family over the winter of 1892. In the article it suggested that they were staying until Spring.  Considering that they were farmers, it has left more questions. Who did the chores while they were gone? Unlike today’s farmers, they would have had horses, cattle and other livestock to care for. It also tells us that even though distance separated them, the families continued to have close ties.
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The site itself is fairly straightforward. You have options to filter by city, publication and year while searching for a specific keyword such as a name or and event. I do think that you need to pack your patience as it sometimes takes a while for the page to render correctly. Otherwise, I found it to be such a useful site. I am sad that there still isn’t a digitized option for a couple of my ancestor’s small town but perhaps someday that will happen.

If you have roots in North Dakota, take some time to explore these digitized newspapers. You never know what you will find. Happy Exploring!