Where to Find Historical Newspapers Online
NEWSPAPER SOURCES
American Antiquarian Society
Homepage: http://www.americanantiquarian.org
Collections: http://www.americanantiquarian.org/?q=node/5
American Memory Project/Library of Congress
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html
Includes clippings, scrapbooks and a limited series of newspapers
Ancestry.com
http://www.ancestry.com/search/rectype/periodicals/news
Canada Online Historical Newspapers Links from The Ancestor Hunt via Thomas
MacEntee via Kenneth R Marks [Great example of networking]
http://www.theancestorhunt.com/1/post/2014/04/canada-online-historicalnewspaper-links.html#.U1arxVVdWVM
Chronicling America/Library of Congress
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov
Cyndi’s List
http://www.cyndislist.com/newspapers
Elphind: Search the World’s Historical Newspaper Archives powered by Veridian
http://www.elephind.com
Fulton History -- New York State Historic Newspapers: Old Fulton New York Post
Cards http://fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html
There are sections of New York, especially upstate New York, that are considered a
black hole for ancestors. The area seems to just swallow them up. Newspapers can be
your key to finding them. Fulton History has an amazing run of digitized newspapers, all
scanned by one very dedicated genealogist (over 28 million pages). It includes
newspapers for towns and cities in upstate and central New York state. It may help you
find a few missing ancestors. People who use this for their New York research find the
site essential.
When you first go in, the main page reminds you more of a circus than anything to do
with newspapers. Hang in there. Look to the upper right and click on the block that
says “FAQ Help Index.” This will get you started. A word of warning. Make sure your
Adobe Flash Player is up-to-date or you will get those annoying, mostly blank grey
pages that warn you incessantly that you need that update.
Newton Free Library, Newton, MA
http://www.newtonfreelibrary.net
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A Genealogy Research Guide Listing Historical Newspapers and Indexes on the
Internet http://www.researchguides.net/newspapers.htm
Google Scanned Newspaper Archives
https://news.google.com/news/advanced_news_search
Library of Congress Newspaper and Periodicals Reading Room
http://www.loc.gov/rr/news
Library of Congress's Newspapers on Microform (3 vols) downloadable pdf
www.loc.gov/rr/news/news_research_tools/newspapersinmf.html
This set includes lists of existent newspapers with their years of coverage and
information on the location of the originals
Linkpendium
http://www.linkpendium.com
This site is arranged by location. To find newspapers you click on your state of interest.
There will be a number of categories. Just scroll down until you see newspapers and
check to see if they have anything of interest. They also include listings for counties as
well.
New York State Historic Newspapers
See Fulton above.
Newspaper Archive
http://www.newspaperarchive.com
This is a subscription site. You have to pay for access. They do have a free archive that
gives you access to a smaller number of newspapers at
http://newspaperarchive.com/free-newspaper-archives
Newspapers.com
http://www.newspapers.com/?xid=216
This is another subscription site that you can try briefly for free.
Online Historical Newspapers Website by Miriam Robbins Midkiff
https://sites.google.com/site/onlinenewspapersite
SmallTownPapers.com
http://smalltownpapers.com
You will only be able to access current editions of some newspapers. Other go back to
1865.
Veridian Digital Newspaper Collections
http://www.veridiansoftware.com/collections
Newton Free Library, Newton, MA
http://www.newtonfreelibrary.net
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XooxleAnswers.com
http://www.xooxleanswers.com/free-newspaper-archives
ARTICLES ABOUT USING NEWSPAPERS IN YOUR RESEARCH
A Long List of Digitized Newspapers Online
The article above was published in Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter on 26
May 2014 about disparate entries pulled together by Larry Parker from the Advantage
Preservation website
The list is linked directly below.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/551652/html/2014/9e7fa6dc-e39f11e3-9de8-002590d31986_id_9e7fa6dc-e39f-11e3-9de8-002590d31986.html
States covered include Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana,
Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma,
Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, and Wisconsin. I don’t believe any
newspaper site has everything, including this one. But if it only has one newspaper
covered in your state of interest and it happens to have your ancestor in it, that’s all
you need.
"City Directories and Newspapers: Windows on the Past"
http://rwguide.rootsweb.ancestry.com/lesson20.htm
FamilySearch has a number of articles in their wiki. Below is a link to their article on
researching with United States newspapers:
https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/United_States_Newspapers
“Finding Newspapers Online” by Barbara Renick
http://www.zroots.com/newspapers.htm
GenealogyBank: Although this is a subscription website, they have a number of
informative articles that you can read at no cost. See below:
How to Uncover Vital Record Clues in Old Newspapers
http://blog.genealogybank.com/how-to-uncover-vital-record-clues-inold-newspapers.html
How to Research Old Newpaper Headlines for Family History
http://blog.genealogybank.com/how-to-research-old-newspaperheadlines-for-family-history.html
Your Immigrant Ancestor: Genealogy Research Tips
http://blog.genealogybank.com/tag/newspapers-for-genealogy
GenealogyBank Learning Center
Newton Free Library, Newton, MA
http://www.newtonfreelibrary.net
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http://www.genealogybank.com/gbnk/learning-center
GenealogyBank Blog
http://blog.genealogybank.com/
OTHER RESOURCES
Remember that there are currently public libraries, historical societies, and genealogy
societies in or near the locations where your ancestors once lived. There is a good
chance that members of these groups or institutions may have created newspaper
indexes over the years and may have even put these indexes online. It is much quicker
to get a copy of an article if you can give the title of the newspaper with a page, a date,
and the subject or title of the article. Some institutions may have even digitized copies
of the actual local newspapers and put them online. Always check. Local institutions
may also know where you can find them if they don't have them in their own collections
or on their website. And remember to tell them why you are interested is in that
geographical area. Do you have an individual or a particular family you are researching?
They may have other genealogical collections that would be of use to you, above and
beyond their newspaper collection.
You will see an example of this below.
Newton News Index: Newton Free Library, Newton Massachusetts.
http://virtual.newtonfreelibrary.net/webapps/newsindex/Default.aspx
Make sure you click on search guidelines before you start hunting for articles.
BOOKS: ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND
American Journalism; A History, 1690 – 1960 by Mott, Frank Luther. 3rd ed.,
New York: Macmillan, 1962. 071.3 M85B
The Compact History of the American Newspaper by Tebbel, John William. New
York, Hawthorne Press, 1963. 871.3 T22C
Newton Free Library, Newton, MA
http://www.newtonfreelibrary.net
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