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by Wendy Boswell

Finding original source documents on the Web, otherwise known as firsthand accounts, primary sources, etc., has thankfully become a pretty easy task. There are plenty of great sites out there that have made it easy for the average searcher to locate pretty much anything from the Bill of Rights to Civil War journals to the Islamic History Sourcebook to the archived Godey s Lady Books seriously, there is NO end to the fun stuff you can find (and don't we all need a bit of break from reading about Google's latest exploits?). Most of these I found using the tips and tricks I outlined in another Lifehacker article, How to Search the Invisible Web, along with a bit of special Web searchin' sauce (I'm lying about the special sauce-although Thousand Island does seem to perk things up a bit).


Here are just a few of the sites on the Web that you can use to locate primary documents; of course there s many, many more, but these are my favorites that I find myself coming back to again and again, just to browse (I'm such a dork, but that's okay). Remember, if you're searching for original documents in order to cite them in an academic paper, you need to make sure you evaluate them first, and use proper citation procedures.


This is by no means an exhaustive list. There's the Australian National Archives Database, the Ad Access Project that "presents images and database information for over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955", the Internet Library of 18th and 19th century Journals, Making of America, a database of American social history primary sources, Chinese cultural texts, Asian history sources...it goes on and on.

Again, even though you might not need to check out any of these primary sources, it's nice to know that after you've downloaded the latest iTunes episode of "The Office" that you DO have the option of browsing through the original Louisiana Purchase documents. I mean, come on - can you imagine what kind of mad office credibility that would give you?


Lifehacker contributor Wendy Boswell edits About.com’s Web Search section.