In the countdown to the Christmas break I didn't get time to check out an announcement from MyHeritage about a new collection of newspapers, but I made a note and finally got round to exploring the records over the past weekend. I'm glad I did. The new collection has rich pickings potential for Irish family historians on both sides of the Atlantic.
The collection is a new and exclusive compendium of historical Massachusetts newspapers. Spanning 1704–1974, it holds 239 titles published in various cities in the state, and its database holds an impressive total of 6,072,877 searchable pages.
It's been created with a particular emphasis on papers from Boston and surrounding locales, making it fertile ground for hunting down ancestors from Ireland, and has been produced by MyHeritage in partnership with the Boston Public Library.
Having made a search for the surname Santry (for my one-name study), I was almost overwhelmed with the number of results. My goodness, the Santrys loved sport! But rather more importantly I also found many reports and announcements relating to marriages, births and deaths, the marketing efforts of an unexpected chiropodist, court cases, a bankruptcy, trade union meetings and society events. A real pot of gold! It's going to take me some time to transcribe/copy all my findings!