Some of my Young and Rhind ancestors left Montreal for Chicago in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which is why I took note of blogger Kenneth R. Marks’ article about free access to the Chicago Tribune newspaper archives, from 1849 to 1991. Since this is a Beta version, Mr. Marks writes that access may only be free for a limited amount of time.
To find articles, you can conduct a simple word search or search by date, such as February 1, 1899, and scroll through the issue.
When looking for an obituary, I was not surprised that the optical character recognition (OCR) capability was not perfect. Unfortunately, it never is. In the case of obituaries, I entered a date and searched the newspaper, page by page. In later years, the obituary section is listed in the contents on the first page, which makes it easier to find.
Mr. Marks’ article, Chicago Tribune Beta Provides Online Searchability, includes a link to the Tribune archives, and it is available on his blog, The Ancestor Hunt.
