Connecticut NewsPapers, Genealogical Periodicals
and Publications

Link To This Page — Contact Us —

The Connecticut Courant served not only Connecticut but the burgeoning frontier to its north in Massachusetts and Vermont and west in New York. It is an important early source for marriages and deaths. Births are rare in its pages. Reports from the frontier are quite common including land advertisements, letters from former residents, and social items. It is widely available on microfilm and an index (1764–1820) by Doris Cook is available at the Connecticut Historical Society.

Donald Gustafson, A Preliminary Checklist of Connecticut Newspapers, 1755–1975, 2 vols. (Hartford, Conn.: Connecticut State Library, 1978) indicates what is extant and where it is available. A state-wide Hale Index (1750 to ca. 1870), at the Connecticut State Library and available on microfilm, surveyed more than ninety of the newspapers for marriages and deaths. A large collection of newspapers themselves are on microfilm to the present.

Between 1910 and 1967, the Hartford Times ran a genealogical query column similar to that of the Boston Evening Transcript, which has been indexed and microfilmed by the Godfrey Memorial Library in Middletown but distributed to many major research libraries.

While records of birth, marriage, and death are the most commonly sought and the most consistently helpful records, only the genealogist’s imagination and resourcefulness limit newspapers’ usefulness in supplying clues about historical events, local history, probate court and legal notices, real estate transactions, political biographies, announcements, notices of new and terminated partnerships, business advertisements, and notices for settling debts.

Newspapers can provide at least a partial substitute for nonexistent civil records. For example, a person’s obituary may have appeared in a newspaper even when civil death records for that person do not exist. And newspapers are an important source of marriage records, particularly in those states where civil recording of marriages was essentially nonexistent until the twentieth century.

Unlike official records, newspapers are not limited to a particular geographical area. They often include reports of the weddings of local citizens (even those that occurred in a neighboring county or another state), and they sometimes report visits of geographically distant relatives or the visits of former local residents. They often published death notices of individuals who had left the area long before but who still had local family or friends as well. In each case the newspaper account can identify the date and place of an event, thus opening the possibility of turning up additional documentation in other sources.

Connecticut Historical Records - Databases include Connecticut Court, Land, Wills & Financial Records; Connecticut Birth, Marriage & Death Records; Connecticut Voter Lists & Census Records; Connecticut Immigration & Emigration Records; Connecticut Obituary Records; Connecticut Military Records; Connecticut Family Tree Records; Connecticut Pictures; Connecticut Stories, Memories & Histories; Connecticut Directories & Member Lists and much more....

As with all record categories, the manuscript collections in Connecticut are excellent. The major repositories—Connecticut State Library, Connecticut Historical Society, Godfrey Memorial Library in Middletown, Greenwich Library, Ferguson Library in Stamford, and Otis Library in Norwich—all have extensive collections. Family papers abound in these collections, but other items such as school records, church records, and original copies of wills and deeds can sometimes be found. There are no every-name indexes, but the collections are well cataloged. Statewide or regional publications include the following:

  • Search The PERiodical Source Index
  • New Haven Genealogical Magazine - (formerly The Families of Ancient New Haven and now The American Genealogist) was begun by Donald Lines Jacobus and still sets a standard for its depth and documentation
  • Connecticut Nutmegger - (1968–present) is a current publication of the Connecticut Society of Genealogists.
  • Newspapers & Periodicals - The Newspapers & Periodicals Collection lets you discover a wealth of information about your ancestors from many historical newspapers, magazines, and other periodicals. These types of sources can often supplement public records and provide information that is not recorded anywhere else. Here, you can learn more about your ancestor's possible daily activities by placing them in the context of their time.
Back to top
Site Map | Copyright © 2011 N2Genealogy.com,