Discovering Baptist History through
Newspaper Research
By Robert L. Vaughn
The general principles are the same, whether
the topic is Baptist history, Sacred Harp, etc.
Baptist history is a field that has occupied much
of my interest and research time for over 40 years. Louis Asher and J. W.
Griffith were important mentors to me, each of whom was my pastor at one time –
one when I was baptized and the other when I was ordained. They were historians
and seminary professors. They nurtured my predisposition toward things historical.
Many facets of our Baptist history may seem
hopelessly lost, like pieces of a puzzle misplaced and missing over time. Many churches,
associations and conventions have been disbanded for years. Their records are
gone. Many individual Baptists are gone and forgotten. Hopes of uncovering
their stories may seem dim, but there are resources available that can offer
surprising glimpses of the history of our tradition. Newspapers,
correspondence, family histories, county histories, and genealogists can be
sources of otherwise hidden information about our Baptist past. In this essay I
offer some tips for recovering Baptist history by searching historical
newspapers online, with a word on why I think this work is important.
Empty
Spaces – the Need for Recovery
There is a need to recover Baptist history. There
are empty spaces in the facts of our Baptist past. Knowledge is loaded in some
areas and light in others. Often the focus has been on the major players to the
disinterest in others. Denominational histories are useful, but evidently emphasize
their own interests, understandings, and biases. Thus, a purported “History of
Texas Baptists” likely is not a history of all Texas Baptists generally, but
only a specific portion of them.
People, places, churches, and events are forgotten
– maybe even entire denominations.[i]
Time is passing away. Each passing day is one day farther away from our Baptist
past, regardless of the area in which we live, or whether its history in that
area dates from 1639 or 1939. Waiting increases the likelihood that meaningful
data will not be recovered. Much information is missing. Records have been
lost, destroyed, or are otherwise decaying. Memories fade.
Yet some things associated with the passing of
time are helpful! The rise of the Internet made much information available that
was previously inaccessible. The continued interest in and compilation of
historical and genealogical materials gather many resources in a single,
accessible place. Cemetery enumerations, such as Find-a-Grave, often are
surprisingly comprehensive.[ii]
Old newspapers are digitized and find their way onto cyberspace. Association proceedings,
Fifth-Sunday meetings, revivals, announcements, building dedications, and obituaries
have all found their way onto period newspaper pages. All is not lost. Hope
arises.
Surprising
Places – the Way of Recovery
Recovering our history requires research—intensive
research. Don’t let that scare you. If you like history and love Baptists (or
vice versa) the research can be a labor of love rather than a chore. The
discovery of information can come from surprising places. One of those places
is the medium of newspaper. In this article I will focus on discovering and recovering
history through newspapers and other digital media.
Newspapers can be researched in physical and
digital formats. Physical searching involves paging through hard copies of
newspapers or microforms (film reproductions requiring a special reader). This
is a time and labor intensive process that can be tiresomely challenging. To
cut down on the tedium and increase the chance of success, searching through
physical newspapers should begin with an idea of the time and place where
relevant information might lie. Digital searching includes online newspaper archives
and search engines such as Google that can lead to digitized newspaper
articles. At least a few libraries have begun to digitize their microfilm
holdings to make them searchable. Others have digitized hard copies of
newspapers in their collections. Digital searching vastly reduces the time and
labor, but introduces the problem of Optical Character Recognition not reading
or recognizing what the human eye can and will.[iii]
Here are some tips for (mainly digital) searches,
most of which I have learned by trial and error.
- Take
advantage of free online newspaper archives, such as the Library of
Congress’s Chronicling America or state-based archives
such as the Portal
to Texas History. Wikipedia.org publishes a list of online newspaper archives, including both free
and subscription (pay) archives.
- Read
newspaper microforms at the library, where they’re available for free. You
can also purchase newspaper microfilm (from the Georgia Newspaper
Project for example), but this can become expensive.
- Subscribe
to an online newspaper archive. Many of the most comprehensive archives
only sell subscriptions to academic libraries.[iv] Most
archives that offer subscriptions to individuals have newspapers of
interest to Baptists, since Baptists are spread widely across the U.S. Before
signing up for a pay site, be sure that the given archive has papers that
are specific to the time and location you are researching. (I subscribe
to Newspapers.com,
which offers a complete list of papers that they have available. Most
other sites should do the same.)
- Vary
your searches
- Search
without quotes. This opens up the largest amount of results, though often
with much peripheral or unrelated material through which to wade
(sometimes necessarily).
- Search
with quotes. This narrows the results to the exact phrase that is placed
within quotation marks and makes the finding more likely to be relevant.
(Be aware that quotation marks do not always function the same in all types
of searches.)
- Use
“advanced search” for resources with this capability, in order to be
specific and narrow findings. At times change and browse by newspaper,
location and date.
- Vary
search engines for online searches (e.g. Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo,
Yahoo). Sometimes one will find something another will not. Sometimes a
search engine such as Google might search a site better than that site’s
own search feature!
- Use
variations of a person’s name. Searching for information on the founder
of Free Will Baptists in Texas, I searched for “A. M. Stewart,” “Angus M.
Stewart,” “Angus McAllister Stewart,” and “Rev. A. M. Stewart.” Even variant
spellings or misspellings – such as McAlister or Stuart – should be
considered. Older preachers often went by their initials rather than
their names, so this should generally be the most common method of
searching. But just because we know “J. R. Graves” doesn’t mean he won’t
show up in a newspaper as “Jas. R. Graves.” Start simply. Search for a
name, then narrow by time or place from the results page.
- Search
for the common first, and then the uncommon to narrow results (as a
general rule). When researching people, search for uncommon names over
common names when it is possible that either one might yield the relevant
information. If you are researching a Baptist association of which John
Smith was the moderator and Mordecai Fowler Ham was the clerk, try
searching for Mordecai Ham first!
- Remember
that many search results are based on OCR text. In material where the
image is not clear, OCR processing might read words incorrectly or miss
them altogether. Finding nothing doesn’t mean there is nothing. Revert to
old fashioned search methods when you believe you should have found
something.
- Understand
that some sites are more user friendly than others, and develop different
techniques for different sites as you realize what works best in each
place.
- Even
misinformation can help. A genealogist might not get some detail right, but
get it close enough for you to sense that you are on the right track or
have found the right person.
- Record
what you’ve searched, when, where and how—so you don’t duplicate your
efforts by searching for the same terms over and over in the same context.
(But do go back and search later; material is always being added to the
web and newspaper archives; just because you don’t find something today
does not mean you won’t find it next month or next year.) Save your
results. Some sites go down, never to return to the World Wide Web.
- Create
a good filing system. I’ve learned this the hard way. I’m always looking
for something that I filed away who knows where! Keep
insignificant bits of information. They might initially seem worthless
now, but may help create an “aha” moment when you find another piece that
fits this piece of the puzzle.
- Be
sensible. Don’t let your preferences and prejudices trip you up. We don’t
use the title “Reverend” in our church – but you can expect journalists
did in their writing! Adding “Rev.” before the name of a preacher both
narrows your search and enhances your finds. Also don’t forget the titles
Elder/Eld., Dr. and maybe even Bishop.
- Realize
that just because something is printed in a newspaper doesn’t mean it is
correct. Learn to discern what can be relied on and what cannot. For
example, if you find someone’s obituary in a paper it is most likely that
they really died, but the obit may get other facts wrong—the day of death,
when and where they were born, etc. Materials submitted by an organization
(such as minutes supplied by an association clerk) are generally more
reliable than those traced to a newspaper reporter; a journalist’s
opinions and observations are just that. Verify from other sources if
possible.
- Search,
search, search. Persistence can be the mother of discovery. “If at first
you don’t succeed: try, try, try again.”
I made a recent significant newspaper discovery while
researching the history of Free Will Baptists in Texas. The traditional
view is that Free Will Baptists in Texas were a product of the Northern branch
of Freewill Baptists. Founder A. M. Stewart’s newspaper obituary clearly points to his roots in the Free
Will Baptists in Georgia. Armed with this information, I found other sources
(censuses, association minutes) that enhanced and supported it.
Leaving
Traces – the Goal of Recovery
Discovering, recovering and recording facts can
help us learn things we did not know and better understand things we already
knew. Finding previously unsearched and unknown Baptist history brings new data
to the Baptist field of study. New facts can be considered in the framework of present
working knowledge, and pooling this data can help grow the reservoir of easily
accessible information on Baptist history from which future writers and
researchers can draw. Understanding who we are as Baptists is one of the higher
goals of recovering our history. Knowing our past gives us a sense of our
present and a guide for our future.[v]
If you have filled in some empty spaces in Baptist
history with information found in surprising places, you must leave traces of
what you have found for those who follow. Contributing to this communal project
means sharing the results of your research! Posting information to a Baptist
listserv or discussion group are ways to dispense information. It gets the
attention of the wider community, where others may offer information, insight,
and interpretations. An individual can start a Baptist-history related website
or offer the information to existing sites of Baptist historical societies or
a site like Jim Duvall’s “Baptist History Homepage.”[vi] Writing
is another way to preserve some of our history. You could write an article for
a Baptist periodical, historical journal, or genealogical newsletter. They are
usually looking for good material.
What about the long term? Keep discoveries and
documents as long as you need them for your continuing research. For all items,
plan ahead. You may want to pass down sentimental-value materials through your
family.[vii]
For everything else, look into options for a permanent repository. Placing Baptist
materials and research with such an institution will typically grant broader
access to the items and ensure their preservation using proven techniques.
Consider these possibilities:
Many of the online materials we find will lack
appeal for archives and museums, but they might find a nice home in the
vertical files of your local library’s genealogical or historical department.
However you decide to go about it, let’s start discovering
and recovering the missing pieces of our Baptist history. By combining our
efforts, we can make a valuable contribution to this important effort.[ix]
Endnotes
[i] I use “denominations” in this piece to refer
to sub-groups or sub-denominations of Baptists – such as ABCUSA, Bible Baptist,
Free Will, Missionary, Old Regular, Primitive, Seventh-Day, and Southern.
[ii] Often offering biographical information on
Baptist preachers, deacons, and laypersons, and sometimes pointing to sources
of such information.
[iii] Optical Character Recognition, or OCR, is a
technology in which computers attempt to automatically recognize text and
reproduce it.
[iv] If you have access to an academic library,
Baptist Museum conservator and historical consultant Christopher Sawula
recommends the following databases, which include a number of local and
regional papers: 19th Century U.S. Newspapers, America’s Historical Newspapers,
African American Newspapers, 1827–1998, African American Newspapers: The 19th
Century, America’s Historical Imprints, American Antiquarian Society Historical
Periodicals, American Broadsides and Ephemera, Accessible Archives, and
ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
[v] I mean this in terms of historical
considerations. The Bible is the final and authoritative source for our faith
and practice.
[vii] For example, an association minute book
containing an obituary of an ancestor or relative might be of great interest
for family members to preserve.
[ix] Research efforts ought to reach across
Baptist denominational aisles. The history of Baptists intersects and intertwines
in various dissenting and divided groups. We should not reject sincere offers
of historical help and insight from others with whom we differ theologically.
We will learn together (and better) by observing this suggestion.
