Newspaper archives

In addition to the St. Pete Times, Evening Independent, Ocala Star-Banner, Gainesville Sun, FSU Flambeau, and other Florida newspapers I've mentioned in earlier emails, I have noticed three new digitized sources that might be helpful for researchers in Florida history or genealogy.

1. The Daytona Beach Morning Journal has coverage from 1937 forward.
2. The Sarasota Herald (later Herald-Tribune) has coverage from the mid-1920s, including the boom-era years.
3. The Afro-American (published in Baltimore and Washington, DC, national edition) has coverage for much of the 20th century. The national edition of this paper, similar to the Pittsburgh Courier and other black newspapers, often included vignettes from Florida communities.

You can access these online by going to the Google news archives search portal at:
http://news.google.com/archivesearch/advanced_search?ned=us&hl=en

St. Petersburg Times index archive

Google has made great progress on digitizing microfilm issues of newspapers, such as the St. Petersburg Times and St. Petersburg Evening Independent.

You can access a search portal at:

http://news.google.com/archivesearch/advanced_search?hl=en

In the source box, just enter the name of the newspaper (i.e., “St. Petersburg Times” or “Evening Independent”). You will get a search results screen.

It’s not perfect: There are still gaps and the software they have used to scan entries has not been proofed in its entirety. For example, the scan might think it sees “081tuary “instead of “obituary.” You cannot save images (unless you’re a little crafty with Firefox and are willing to save in many small pieces), and this does not mean we should cancel our microfilm for the Times, but it is a nice alternative source that (as of now, at least) is free.