Here are a
few suggestions to help you frame your search based on tips from our expert
searchers & account developers:
1.) Do I know exactly when my subject occurred? Do I know within a range of
years?
This will help narrow down
the number of search results. In the early newspapers, look for coverage of events a day or two
after they happened (obviously, news wasn't speedy as it is now).
2.) Would my subject have a different name than it would today?
Because there is no thesaurus in the database, customers will have to use the
language of the times to find their subject. For example, a search on suffrage
for the 19th century rather than feminism would be much more
successful.
3.) How would the person be referred to in the article?
Women were often referred to by their married names (their husband's last name), i.e., Mrs.Gilbert.
Would the article refer to Lincoln, Mr. Lincoln, President Lincoln or Abraham Lincoln? In older
newspapers, there were few editorial standards of how people's last names were
used. Be prepared to try a combination of terms.
The key here is to stress that the database teaches valuable primary source
skills. These are the same skills that any primary source based database
will require of users.
