2006 Year in Review for Newspaper Abstracts - Finding Our Ancestors in the
News!
Newspaper Abstracts started out over six years ago simply as a place to
share old newspaper articles I had in my collection and has grown into a
site with hundreds of contributors and over 30,900 articles - with over
9,100 contributed during 2006! There are currently over 1,500 registered
members on the Newspaper Abstracts site and over 10,000 subscribers to the
various Old-News mail lists. An average of 750 news items are added each
month and over 1,317,000 of these articles have been read on the site in
just the last 18 months!
I wanted to take this time to remind all of our various members,
subscribers, contributors and coordinators of some of the features of the
site and clarify some others. If you haven't visited the site in a while, I
encourage you to stop by soon to take advantage of many of the new features.
Old News Articles
Old news articles are submitted on the website at
http://www.NewspaperAbstracts.com, and on occasion through one of the mail
lists, by site visitors, regular contributors along with county and state
coordinators. For more information on how to submit news articles and what
type of articles are accepted on the site please visit
http://www.newspaperabstracts.com/link.php?id=1588 and
http://www.newspaperabstracts.com/link.php?id=1590.
Mail Lists
There are 53 mail lists associated with the Newspaper Abstracts website.
Through the miracle of computers, all articles added to the site are
automatically sent to two mail lists by the script on the website. The
first mail list an article goes to is Newspaper-Abstracts(a)rootsweb.com. This
is the main list for Newspaper Abstracts and has the most traffic - normally
over 600 emails per month. The second list the article goes to is the state
specific list, for example, an article posted in any county in Missouri is
sent to the MO-Old-News(a)newspaperabstracts.com mail list, an article posted
in Illinois goes to IL-Old-News(a)rootsweb.com, etc. More information,
including subscribe and unsubscribe instructions for the mail lists can be
found at
http://www.newspaperabstracts.com/link.php?id=2339.
Acknowledgements
The actual submitter of any news article can be found on the website with
the article. Under the title of the article is a by-line, which shows the
chosen user name of the contributor. When an article is submitted to the
site, an email automatically goes out to the appropriate mail lists and
subscriber list. These articles are sent to the list from the
administrative email address for the Newspaper Abstracts website, which is
articles(a)newspaperabstracts.com. This is NOT the email address of the
actual contributor of the news article. To view and/or contact the actual
contributor of the article, you will need to follow the link in the email
message to the Newspaper Abstracts website.
Newspaper Abstracts Registered Members
The Newspaper Abstracts website allows visitors to register for a free
account. Once registered, the member can choose to subscribe to a specific
county and/or state. By subscribing, the member is notified each time a new
article is added to the county and/or state that the member subscribed to.
To unsubscribe, the member only needs to return to the main page for the
county and/or state that they are receiving notifications from and click on
unsubscribe. Alternately, a registered member can log in at the site and go
to 'Options', then go to 'Manage Subscriptions'. This area will list all
county, state and/or specific article pages that you have subscribed to and
allow you to unsubscribe from there.
A new feature for registered members provides you with another place to post
your research information. Under your profile, you can now list items such
as your family history web page, surnames you are researching, along with a
limited amount of research information. You can set your account to receive
private messages as well as have your own guestbook. You may turn these
options on or off in your profile setting. The advantage of registering
with the site and accepting private messages is in the ability to have
others contact you without giving out your email address, thereby reducing
the amount of unwanted messages.
Posting Restrictions
In an effort to thwart inappropriate posts on the site, all
postings, including news articles, comments and postings to guestbooks, are
subject to approval by the administrator. Once a member has posted a number
of appropriate posts, whether as comments, guestbook submissions or article
submissions, their account is manually upgraded to a contributor account and
their posts are no longer held pending administrator approval, though all
postings are still reviewed and subject to removal if not deemed appropriate
for the site.
And Finally
I would like to take this time to thank all of those who have taken the time
to submit news items to the site over the past 7 years. Your contributions
are greatly appreciated. For a list of the top contributors to Newspaper
Abstracts, please visit our homepage at
http://www.NewspaperAbstracts.com.
I would also like to thank those volunteers who help with specific counties
and states. A list of current state and county coordinators can now be
found on the site at
http://www.newspaperabstracts.com/leaders.php. Many
more coordinators are also needed for other areas of the site. To learn
more about becoming a state or county coordinator, see
http://www.newspaperabstracts.com/link.php?id=2317.
Wishing all a wonderful and blessed 2007!
Barbara Freeman
Site Administrator
Newspaper Abstracts - Finding Our Ancestors in the News!
http://www.NewspaperAbstracts.com