January 24, 2025
Genealogists love old newspapers for good reason. Birth and marriage announcements can provide the framework of an ancestor’s life. Often, the only biographical information written about someone’s life appears in his obit. Other newspaper articles add context to local and national events that may have impacted someone’s life.
Newspapers were published in all parts of the United States. Some existed well before the American Revolution. Most, however, are from the mid-1800s and forward.
Millions of pages of newspapers have been digitized over the last few decades. This has made newspapers one of the easiest genealogical resources to access. Both free and paid websites offer newspapers from all over the world.
Chronicling America (https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/ ) is a free newspaper site that contains digitized newspapers from all over the U.S. It contains newspapers from 1746 through 1963. Due to copyright issues, most of the titles covered were published before 1929.
The site also features a directory called “U.S. Newspaper Directory, 1690 to Present.” This helps identify all the newspapers published for a specific place and time and indicates how to access them.
Chronicling America is usually a good place to begin newspaper research. Once you have checked what papers are available on its website, it is time to search for additional newspapers from various states. Most states have historical newspaper projects which have digitized newspapers for that state. The easiest way to locate a state’s historic newspaper project is to google the name of the state plus “historic newspaper project.”
Since the state newspaper projects are free, it’s worth checking them even if the titles they cover overlap with those from Chronicling America. Not all issues of a particular title may have been digitized at both sites. I have used the historic newspaper projects of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming extensively and have found articles on them that were not available on Chronicling America.
Once you have exhausted the free sites, it’s worth checking out paid sites such as Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/ ) and Genealogy Bank (https://www.genealogybank.com/ ). Although they are paid sites, they offer free trial memberships for a limited period. Use the free trial to check that the sites contain newspapers and issues that will be of value to you.
A few years ago, newspaper research was tedious and time-consuming. Unless you had a date, it required endless scrolling through microfilm or paper copies. It often meant lengthy visits to far away libraries that held a specific newspaper or long waiting times for interlibrary loans of microfilm rolls that covered only a few days of a newspaper. That is no longer the case.
Digitized newspapers are expanding their titles and coverage at a rapid pace. If you don’t find the newspaper that you need on a website, check back in a few months. The site may have added just what you need.
Carol Stetser
Researcher
Larimer County Genealogical Society