Searching for Stafford County News Records

Helpful Hints Offered by: Laura Keyes Perry

 

What's great about online research is, that many of the Fredericksburg newspapers are online in digital form, for free!

For issues of the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, one can try a google (or other) search. For google, I put this in the search box:
keyes site:fredericksburg.com
Obviously, other people would substitute their own surname or research interest for "keyes."
    
Searching like that does not turn up ALL the instances of that word in the FLS. However, when I already have a person's date of death, I usually can search the issues for that day and the days following and find an obituary. I put in the date I want on this page:
http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/archives
Or, I can click the blue hot link "Timeline" under the search box, which takes me to a page on which I can access ALL the issues of the FLS. From there I can move to the dates I want.

This site ALSO has issues of the Fredericksburg Daily Star, with newspapers from 100 years ago. They are harder to search. If you use the search box at http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/archives, the pages often will say "no editions available" for early dates. What I have discovered is that they ARE available. I go to this page
http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/garchives?searchquery=daily+star+died&submit=Search
and click on a date close to the one I want. I go to that page (even though it isn't exactly the one I want) and click on the blue link that says
Browse this newspaper
That takes me to a complete timeline of all the Daily Star newspapers, which have plenty of news about Stafford County residents.

There may be a less complicated way to access the early newspapers, but I know this one works!

When I get to the page I want, I use the buttons at the top to enlarge the print. The website does not provide a way to copy an article or a page, but it is easy enough to transcribe straight from the screen. What I do is put the article I want to transcribe as far to the left as I can. Then I open Notepad and reduce its size until it fits on the right side of the screen. (Obviously, I have a Windows computer. I am not sure how I'd do this on a Mac.) I can read on the left and write on the right.

I hope this information can be of use to you and others.