Tuesday’s Tips: Old Fulton NY Post Cards
Do you have New York ancestors? Have you utilized Old Fulton NY Postcards?
The first few times I accessed this site, I was more than confused as to how to access the records they keep. What records do they have you ask. NEWSPAPERS. I love old newspapers. On this site, I have found obituaries, quick updates about ancestors leaving town and then coming back as well.
So, you ask what is so confusing about the website. On the right 2/3 of the web page is a ability to page the site owner, look at older photo’s and log in. You do not need to log in to use this site.
screen shot of home page
On the right side is where you do your research. You plug in the information you are looking for and are given a list of hits to search through. Everything is in small print, so be careful going through these lists. Personally, as I go through my lists, I look at what area the paper is before I open it. If it is in the area my ancestors lived, I will then open and see what I can find.
List of results for John O’Connell
There are 5,000 hits when I searched for John O’Connell, which is way too many to go through. This is when I get selective and will look for papers that were located near the places John had lived.
There are many different searches that can be performed on this site. If you have ancestors in NY, I suggest you take some time and search here to see if you can find anything in their newspapers.
If you are getting 5,000 hits you really need to do a boolean search. Use the FAQ – Help Index link at the top of the page to find help specific to searching this site. You can search by specific paper but you have to know exactly how the paper was labeled on the site and a few are spelled incorrectly in the index. To find what papers are there click on “View Fulton Historical Photos,” found in the bottom box on the right side of the page. You will then see an index of all the wonderful goodies on the site. The newspaper index can be found in the center column, two from the left. You can simply note the correct name of a paper of interest and go back to the search page or you can click on a specific paper and browse the pages. If you are looking for say, an obituary, and you know the date of death you may find it by browsing if the OCR program didn’t pick it up in a search.
Apple, Thanks for taking the time to comment. I have looked at specific papers on their site at one time or another. This has been a very helpful site, it was just very confusing to utilize at first. I have not tried a boolean search, but I will make sure to do that the next time I need something.