New to puzzle constructing - advice?

[Hysc]

After reading this week's NYT article on constructing, I was inspired to try.  I'm now completely absorbed in filling a 15x15 themed puzzle, and feel great about a theme inspired by my kids.  But, all that being said, I'm still relatively new to crosswords generally (I got the NYT app only about a year ago and was hooked) so I haven't much of a sense of whether I'm inadvertently repeating something that's been used before. Any advice for a newbie like me on how to check whether or how often your theme has been used before? 

I was also spooked by the postings on the plagiarism scandal, though somewhat reassured that duplication does happen by the articles linked there.

Thanks in advance

[mmcbs]

In my opinion CrosswordGiant.com is the best place to check to see if your theme entries have been used before. It will show the publisher and date for any entry you want to check, and you can then link through to the entire list of entries for that particular puzzle where a quick scan will tell you if the theme is the same (which it may not be even if one theme entry is the same). There are other databases available online, but I think one is the most complete (has a lot more publishers than Cruciverb).

[Hysc]

Hugely helpful thanks.