Newspaper Archives
Searching History...For Free!
Newspaper archives with their collections of millions of old newspaper articles have always been a treasure trove for historical research or to find a person, but in pre-digital days, a treasure that one approached with grim determination. Research meant hours or days going through dusty old stacks, scrolling through dizzying rolls of microfilm (inevitably, in negative image format), scanning endless headlines, articles and photo captions, and usually turning up...not very much.
The world has changed! A century or two of historical newspaper articles can now be searched with ease. In seconds, you can pull up vintage articles on your great grandfather's grocery store, wanted notices for Jesse James, advertisments for a Ford Model T, or dramatic stories on the sinking of the Titanic.
Pretty cool! That is, if you can get access to the right archives! The archives of the esteemed New York Times is available online, mostly for free. This is great news, as the Times is one of the premier historical resources available (users may still have to register at the NYT website before using the archives). The archives of the Times can be searched directly here.
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Looking for information on people. Try Intelius.
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Other newspaper archives can be a bit more elusive. Historical researchers quickly become familiar with commercial newspaper archives like Proquest, Readex, Newsbank, and the like, but these are high-priced, institutional subscription services, and not everyone can get ready access to them.
A much more accessible and affordable subscription service for vintage newspaper articles is NewspaperArchive.com
. I use them constantly for family ancestry and historical research, and recommend them highly. It's especially useful for small town news, or the local perspective on worldly events.
Increasingly, there are digital archives of old newpapers available to everyone at no charge...if you know where to look. Many of them are squirreled away in odd corners of the internet, but they're well-worth knowing about.
I've arranged my collection of hundreds of free newspaper archive links into several categories:
I hope you make good use of these links. If you know of another resource that should be included, find a broken link, or just want to chat, go ahead and drop me a line.
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Looking for information on old friends and lost relatives? Try Intelius.
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Enjoy exploring history? Take a look at FirstMention.com