Search Local are posts covering the free digital collections available from libraries and archives in Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio. It is published twice monthly.
Welcome to the first Search Local post! In honor of this first post about free digital materials, we are covering three separate statewide collections available in Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio.
Digital newspaper collections are a boon for genealogists. We can find the obvious announcements relating to births, marriages, and deaths, but newspapers can also tell us about family visitations, health ailments, parties and the social scene, involvement in clubs and organizations, appearances in court, even community gossip. Local papers provide a perspective on the community and its inhabitants that is unique, they are amazing resources for anyone searching for information on their family.
The Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan University hosts the Digital Michigan Newspapers, a collection of Michigan titles covering 1830 to 2020 from twenty-nine counties. On the website, you can browse by date, county, or newspaper title. Search by name or keyword or use the “Advanced Search” icon and limit your search by date or newspaper. On the results page, you can narrow by newspaper, decade, or county. The full digital page and textual transcript are both provided and the search term is highlighted throughout the page.
To save the full page as a PDF, click on the “Download whole document” link. If interested in saving the article image, select the “scissors” icon, click and drag to highlight the article, then click on the “checkmark” icon. A new page opens with the cropped image, hover the mouse over the image and right-click, then select “Save image as” to save as JPEG.
Hosted by the Indiana State Library, Hoosier State Chronicles provides digital newspapers from 1804 to 2018 for fifty-seven counties. The search, results, and cropping an image functionality use the same interface and appearance as the Digital Michigan Newspapers 
collection. The only difference is downloading the full page, which be saved as a PDF by using right-click on your mouse and selecting “Save image as.”
The Ohio History Connection and the State Library of Ohio collaborated on Ohio Memory, which hosts more than just newspaper collections. The newspapers that are available on Ohio Memory from 1832 to 2011 encompass sixty-four counties. Search terms can be names, keywords, and city in order to narrow down the results. You will need to restrict the format by clicking on the drop-down arrow and select “Newspapers” to limit the search. The results page provides a transcript and full image with search terms highlighted.
The full page can be saved as PNG, by using right-click on your mouse and select “Save image as.” To save the article, select the “crop” icon. A new page will open, then click and drag the article of interest and select the “Crop” link. Another page will open, right-click on your mouse and select “Save image as” and then as JPEG.
Remember to Search Local to see what materials are out there for your family. Search and browse newspapers for the region your family resided. You never know what you might find!