MONROE COUNTY – Another 42,500 historic newspaper pages will soon be available online for free.
For the second year, the Genealogical Society of Monroe County has received a grant from the Monroe County Museum System’s Historical Projects Fund. The grant funds will soon be used to scan back issues of the Monroe News and its predecessors, as well as pages from small former newspapers throughout the county, and the images will be available online for free. A search function will allow users to search by keyword.
This year’s pages should be available online in the next six months, said Rick Grassley of the society. With last year’s donation from the museum, the society digitized 14,000 newspaper pages.
Previous reporting: 14,000 historical pages of a local newspaper now online
“Last year, from August 25, 2023 to August 25, 2024, there were 20,928 page views,” Grassley said.
In both years, microfilm was borrowed from the Monroe County Library System and other films were purchased. Digitization work is being done by Advantage Archives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
The Monroe County Genealogical Society plans to continue digitizing historic local newspapers in the future.
“This is an ongoing project. We hope to add some rolls of Milan newspapers and continue to digitize newspapers from Monroe, Carleton, Petersburg and Dundee,” Grassley said.
Here’s what you need to know to use the collection.
Where can I find the digitized documents?
The Monroe County Genealogical Society newspaper pages can be viewed at monroemi.historyarchives.online/home.
Issues of the Monroe Evening News from January 4, 1921, to December 31, 1923, have been digitized by Central Michigan University and can be viewed at digmichnews.cmich.edu.
What will be digitized in 2024?
“The grant will enable the digitization of newspapers from 39 different years and six different publications from Carleton, Dundee, Monroe and Petersburg,” Grassley said.
Scanned are: The Monroe Evening News/Monroe Courier (January 1918 to December 1918); The Monroe Evening News (approximately July 1923 to June 1930); Petersburg Sun (dated 1900–1917); Dundee Reporter (dated 1930–1950); and Carleton Messenger (dated 1938–1948).
What is already available?
In 2021, the Monroe County Museum received a grant from Central Michigan University to digitize The Monroe Evening from January 4, 1921 to December 31, 1923. These can be viewed at digmichnews.cmich.edu/.
Previous reporting: Preserving the Monroe County Record
Scanned by the Genealogical Society in 2023 were: Dundee Reporter (1879-1930), The Monroe Evening News (1919-1919), Carleton Messenger (1925-1976), Petersburgh Sun (1891-1899), Monroe Monitor (1862-1876 ), Petersburgh Bulletin (1880-1884), Carleton Times (1876-1919), The Monroe Commercial And Southern Michigan Advocate (1849-1856), The Monroe Times (1836-1838), Monroe Commercial (1856-1886), Monroe Gazette (1839-1846), Michigan Sentinel (1825-1835), The Itemizer (1878-1878), Monroe Advocate (1846-1847), The Monroe Index (1881-1881), The Monroe Journal And Michigan Inquirer (1834-1834), Dundee Enterprise (1876-1876), and The Monroe National Press (1859-1859). These can be viewed at monroemi.historyarchives.online/home.
Subscribe now: Here you will find the latest information on local developments, breaking news and content related to high school sports.
For more information about the digitization project, visit the Genealogical Society of Monroe County Facebook page or email [email protected].
— Contact reporter Suzanne Nolan Wisler at [email protected].