One of the most important online research tools for genealogists is searchable newspaper records. And now, the Library of Congress has debuted a new database of newspapers from the 1900 to 1910 time frame.

The release of “Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers” came Wednesday in Washington, D. C. during a reception of the National Newspaper Association. It was a joint announcement of the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The project contains more than 226,000 pages of public domain newspapers from California, Florida, Kentucky, New York, Utah, Virginia and the District of Columbia published between 1900 and 1910. The text of the newspapers is fully searchable, and search terms can be limited to a particular state, a specific newspaper, and year or years and even months of publication. The new site is available at www.loc.gov/chroniclingamerica/

“Chronicling America” is produced by the National Digital Newspaper Program, a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress. This long-term effort is intended to develop an Internet-based, searchable database of U.S. newspapers with select digitization of historic pages as well as information about newspapers from 1690 to the present. Supported by the NEH’s “We the People” program and Digital Humanities Initiative, this rich digital resource will continue to be developed and maintained at the Library of Congress.