Historical Beaverton Newspapers 1923-present

The library has a collection of microfilm of the historical Beaverton Newspapers.
As it turns out not all of them are listed in our catalog. This blog is to inform you of the holdings we do have, and the titles over time:

Beaverton Review
12/25/1923 to 4-18-1941

Beaverton Enterprise
3/17/1927 to 1-26-1951

Beaverton Valley News
2-2-1951 to 5/24/1962

Beaverton Valley Times
1963- present

One other cool feature is the abity to scan microfilm into pdf and then have it as a file on your portable storage device, aka thumb drive.

Census records from 1940 released today!

Hello genealogy junkies everywhere! You might be interested in knowing details about 1940 census, but you might have to wait. Here's a link describing the crushing load that the census computers are having on the internet now... I just tried it with Ancestry Library edition which we furnish via WCCLS Genealogy links to in-house users. It still hasn't loaded yet and I clicked it more than 20 minutes ago.. By the way HeritageQuest's description does not show 1940 census yet but they may just be redoing it now.

http://openchannel.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/02/10972767-archives-bends-under-rush-for-1940-census-records-share-your-family-stories

Finding your birthparents

 Here are a couple of books that might be useful to anyone trying to find their birthparents.

Adoption Records Handbook
Teresa A. Brown
2008

The Adoption Searcher's Handbook
Norma Mott Tillman
2010

The Ultimate Search Book: Worldwide Adpotion, Genealogy & Other Search Secrets

Lori Carangelo

2011

Heritage Quest Online

We are very excited about the addition of a new genealogical database to our collection. Heritage Quest Online is available in the library and can also be accessed remotely (using your library card and password). Included in the database are the following resources:

• ~ The complete set of the U.S. Federal Census images from 1790-1930.

~ Over 25,000 family and local histories which can be searched by names of people and places.
~ PERsi (PERiodical Source Index) compiled by the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana. You can find people and places in this index of over 2.1 million genealogy and local history articles.
~ Selected records from the Revolutionary War Era Pension & Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files.

~ The Freedman's Bank (1865-1874), which was founded to serve African Americans.
~ Memorials, Petitions, and Private Relief Actions of the U.S. Congress in the Lexis-Nexis U.S. Serial Set.
For history buffs or anyone interested in finding their ancestors, this is a resource that you will definitely find fascinating.

Cole Directory: for Salesmen, Realtors, Contractors, Collections Leads, & Skip Tracing

Want to find neighbors? New movers? New customers?

The Cole Directory, arranged by street and house numbers, enables you to find individuals quickly and accurately. Marketing to prospective clients has never been easier when you use the power of this cross-reference resource.


Reach more prospects - Get details about neighbors that help you determine which are the best prospects.

Build your referrals - Contact neighbors of your best customers with special offers that increase the likelihood they'll call

Look more professional - Address your mailings directly to the people who live there to increase results.

Uncover valuable spending potential down to the census tract. Easy codes take the stress out of prospecting in unfamiliar neighborhoods. Find by address, telephone numbers, or street intersections. Includes businesses, offices, shopping centers.

Genealogy tool, Property history tool

One of the most versitile tools in the reference collection, Beaverton has also lovingly maintained a collection of these reverse directories going back to 1959. Back then, the company responsible for reverse directories in the Portland Beaverton metro area was called Polks. Look at an old Polks Portland city directory and take a step back in time.

How to track down obituaries

How to track down obituaries:

Finding obituaries can be one of the most frustrating kinds of searches.

If you are in search of any obituaries, try the following commercial website to help you locate them by searching by the person's name and publication date: http://obitsarchive.com/
ObitsArchive.com is the largest and most comprehensive collection of newspaper obituaries and death notices in the United States. Each obituary or death notice is indexed by the name of the deceased person, to make searching easier and more precise. In addition, the text of each obituary or death notice is searchable, making it easy to find just what you're looking for using a place of residence, occupation, names of family members, or other personal information.
The name of this website appears in the Oregonian newspaper in the Obituary section as a
way to help people track down specific obituaries.
This website will not get you to the actual article, unless you pay a fee to register. For free it will provide you with the ability to verify the name of the newspaper an obituary appeared in and the exact date.
Then with this information in hand you can visit your local public library, in this case the Beaverton City Library, and library staff can assist you in placing an Interlibrary Loan so that you can get the actual copy of the obituary.

• When you access this website, the main page will provide you with the option to be able to search by the Name of the deceased, then if you have it you can add any death date info , and any other Obituary text that might have appeared in the obituary. This will search newspapers all over the whole United States.
• You can also search by geographical location by scrolling down the main page and making a geographical selection, either by selecting states from a map or individual states or geographical regions. (If you have tried a Name search and then decide to try a Locational search just look at the search options available to you on the left side of the screen.)

Try out this site and see if it will be of assitance to you in your obituary searches.