As I was doing some obituary searching today I ran across a new database on Ancestry.com. The collection of birth notices, marriage announcements and obituaries covers the years 1851 to 2003 from eight major U.S. newspapers in ProQuest's Historical Newspaper Collection. Even for those of us who already have access to the ProQuest newspaper collection, this new database makes it much easier to sort out the birth, death and marriage notices from the rest of the news. My only gripe is that the name you search for isn't highlighted on the digital page as it is with Ancestry's other newspaper databases, but that's just a minor quibble.

Entries in the fully searchable database were taken from the New York Times, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Defender (Big Weekend and National Editions), Chicago Tribune, Hartford Courant, the Washington Post and Atlanta Constitution. Searches lead you to digital images from the actual newspaper page.

Historical Newspapers, Birth, Marriage & Death Announcements, 1851-2003