Primary Sources - U.S. History Digital Collections

The number of websites offering primary sources continues to grow, and Google has search tools that can help you find relevant materials.

Below is an example of a Google search for primary sources on witches and witchcraft.

Key points to remember:

• Use words and phrases that are commonly used for primary sources: correspondence, diaries, documents, letters, narratives, papers, primary sources, sources, and speeches. A librarian can help with generating these search terms.
• Use quotation marks (" ") to search for phrases (exact words in an exact order).
• Combine synonyms or similar terms with parentheses.
• Use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard to find alternate word endings.
• Exclude words with a hyphen (-). Think of it as subtracting a term from your search. (For example, witch* -Salem)
• Use OR (in all caps) to search for either term.
• Use AND (in all caps) to retrieve results with both words.
• Limit your results to a specific domain using site:.edu or site:.org, which often lead to more reliable primary source collections.