For over a hundred years various genealogical and historical societies have published periodicals to share information. Articles range a wide variety of topics such as family histories, cemetery transcripts, tax lists, school records, and many more. The Allen County Public Library's Genealogy Center, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, has compiled a subject index of more than 10,000 periodicals dating back to the mid 1800s, called the Periodical Source Index (PERSI).
PERSI is currently accessed through findmypast.com. Findmypast is working with the Federation of Genealogical Societies to improve the index to include links to digital images of all the periodicals. Access to PERSI is free, though you do need to create a findmypast.com account, but viewing any digital images requires a subscription (or a visit to a local Family History Center).
On the home screen of findmypast.com, select the "Search" button and then choose "Newspapers & periodicals." In this case I am looking for records in Clay county, Indiana. I can search for "Indiana Clay" and see 911 records found.
On the left side of the screen are a number of filters which I can use to narrow my results, such as last name or subject, such as census, cemetery, etc. Keep in mind that last names are only included in the index if they were the main subject of an article. It will not find that last name appearing in a list within an article. Clicking on the blue paper icon will bring up a source citation for the article; if there is a camera icon a digital image is available.
The citation shows which periodical volume and issue includes the article. It also lists repositories that carry that issue, but the list is not exclusive. Also indicated is the publisher of the periodical, in this case, Illiana Genealogical & Historical Society.
The next step is to find the article I have an interest in reading. The Allen County Public Library has all of these periodicals in their collections and has a service to copy the articles upon request. You can also see if the publisher has their periodicals available digitally or if they offer copy services. Some periodicals can be found at books.google.com. Another option is to search the Family History Library Catalog under the subsection of "Books." I searched for "Illiana 1966", using the main words from the periodical title and the year of the issue I want.
Some records are available to view from anywhere, but some are only viewable at a Family History Center, which is the case for this particular periodical.
Yet another option is to check the TCGS holdings at the local Richland Family History Center. The periodical catalog can be found here. I was able to easily determine that they have the Illiana Genealogist Vols. 1-4, which includes the issue I want and I can pull it from the shelf to look at during my next visit.
Periodicals can be a great resource for finding small record collections or lists that are hard to find elsewhere. The example I used here is for marriage records in Clay county, Indiana 1838-1853. Ancestry.com and familysearch.org have a lot of marriage records for Indiana, but their collections begin in 1851-1853 for Clay county. This periodical article could prove to be an important source for documenting marriages during that earlier time frame.
So the next time you have exhausted the more mainstream record collections and don't know where else to look for the information you need, give periodicals a try.
