Funded in part by the Mary K. Bowman Fund for Historical and Fine Arts administered by the Community Foundation of Washington County MD, Inc., and the Riggs-Conard Trust Fund.

Each newspaper issue is four pages in length and each page has seven columns across its width. In order to quickly reference the location of an article, the newspaper’s pages will be referred to with the numbers 1-4, and each page’s columns will be referenced by the letters A-G. The 1st column on the left would be column A, and the 2nd column on the left would be column B, etc. Please note that the newspapers do not have page or column numbers printed on them. 

Harnish, Sarah B.	Married.	(Bovey-Harnish).
Subject Heading	Title	Summary of article/announcement/ad/notice
11/8/1/65	H&TL	3B
Date of article	Name of Newspaper	Page # and column

*** PLEASE BE AWARE***

When an article is continued into another column, all names and subjects listed in the article will be indexed under the column where the article began.

The titles of articles are written as they are found in the newspapers including typographical errors and misspellings.

Missing Newspapers Issues for 1860 - 1862

The September 10, 1862 issue of the Herald of Freedom & Torch Light was published under the date of September 24, 1862 due to invasion of Maryland by the Southern army. The first page of the issue carries the date of September 10th with the remainder of the issue showing the date of September 24th. This is indicated in the Index entry with an asterisk.

Missing Issues:

Herald of Freedom & Torchlight

1860	-	November 21, November 28
1861	-	August 21
1862	-	May 7, July 9, October 1, October 29, November 26, December 3 - December 10.

Maryland Free Press

January 1860-October 24, 1862

Hagerstown Mail

1860	-	All
1861	-	January-July, August 9-November 8, November 22-December 27
1862	-	All

Missing Newspapers Issues for 1863 - 1865

Throughout this three-year period there are scattered missing issues. Sometimes entire pages are missing; sometimes there is a hole cut in the page where an article was removed.

Missing Issues:

Herald of Freedom & Torch Light:

1863 Jan. 7, 14, 28; Feb. All; March 11, 25; April 29; May 13, 20, 27; June All; July All; August 12, 19; October 14, 28; Nov. 4; Dec. 16, 23.

Herald & Torch Light:

1864 Jan. All; Feb. 10, 17; March 2; Aug. 10, 31.
1865 Oct. 11.

***The July 6, 1864 issue was interrupted at press due to the Confederates entering the area. The paper did not resume publication until July 20 and used the already typeset first page of the July 6 issue.

Maryland Free Press: Majority of issues are missing.

Hagerstown Mail: Majority of issues are missing.

Tips for Searching the Index

Subject Headings and Newspaper Article Coverage:

Subjects are arranged in alphabetical order. Types of information include:

Agricultural Market Prices

Buildings

Businesses 

Civil War (United States History-Civil War-)

Crimes

Editorials and Letters to the Editor – topics of local or regional significance

Elections – local, state and national

Geographical locations

Government agencies and officials organized as subdivisions under the heading of their appropriate political unit:

For example:
WASHINGTON COUNTY GOVT – SHERIFF
HAGERSTOWN GOVT – COMMISSIONERS
MARYLAND GOVT – GENERAL ASSEMBLY
UNITED STATES GOVT – POST OFFICE

Land Tracts

Legal notices – announcements of estate sales; commission meetings; estate settlements

Marriage and Death notices

Names of governing bodies

Occupations

Organizations

Personal names

Politics and Political Parties

Topics reflecting general news coverage related to local and regional issues and events.

Weather

Personal Names:

All first names are fully spelled out.

Examples:
Look for William – not – “Wm.”
Look for Thomas – not – “Thos.”

The exceptions to the above will be abbreviations for first names that may be associated with several different first names or abbreviations with no recognizable correlation to a first name.

Examples:
Jno. may refer to either Jonathan or John
M’g. James-first name unknown

*** It is important to check for ALL possible spellings of the person’s name; there may be more than one subject heading for the same individual due to newspaper misspellings. For example, it is likely that all of the following subject headings could refer to the same individual:

Ankeney, Henry

Ankenny, Henry

Ankeny, Henry

Sometimes initials are transposed or are not properly recognized by the indexer.

Examples: These may refer to the same individual.

Miller, A. J.

Miller, J. A.

Miller, A. I.

Miller, I. A.

*** All compound surnames are entered without a space, and are filed in strict alphabetical order.

For Example:

Van Horne = VANHORNE

De Young = DEYOUNG

Place Names:

Articles are also indexed under place names as they are known today. 

For example: To find “Hager’s-Town,” look under “Hagerstown.”

Advertisements:

Advertisements provide descriptions of goods or services offered, removal to a new place of business, rewards offered for a runaway, etc.

While the same advertisement may appear repeatedly over an extended period of time, IT WILL ONLY BE INDEXED ONCE, generally in the issue in which it FIRST appeared. Advertisements offering real estate will include the location of the land in the synopsis following the ad’s headline.

Cross-references:

There are many cross-references throughout the volume to direct the user to the proper subject heading or to other related materials. The designation SEE indicates the proper subject heading to look under for information. The designation SEE ALSO indicates that there are other subject headings under which more information may be found. 

For example:

If you are looking for DOCTORS………………SEE PHYSICIANS
If you are looking for CIVIL WAR……………..SEE UNITED STATES HISTORY-CIVIL WAR

If you are looking for LAWSUITS……………...SEE ALSO MARYLAND GOVT-CIRCUIT COURT-WASH CO

Abbreviations Used: