Three Free Tools for Finding Historical Newspapers

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One of the best parts of attending genealogy society meetings is discovering new research tools.

I recently attended a meeting of the Brown County Genealogy Society (Kansas) where Cindy Cruz of the Topeka Genealogical Society presented an excellent program on using newspapers for genealogy research. During her presentation, she recommended the Library of Congress' U.S. Newspaper Directory as a way to identify newspapers that were published in a particular community.

The directory is an outstanding resource when you're trying to answer questions such as:

  • What newspapers were published in this town?
  • When were they published?
  • Where are copies known to exist?

Knowing that a newspaper existed is often the first step toward finding an obituary, marriage notice, legal advertisement, or local news item about an ancestor.

Looking Beyond the Directory

While I have used the Library of Congress directory in the past, my own workflow has gradually evolved. Because many local libraries, historical societies, and state archives have digitized portions of their newspaper collections, I often begin with The Ancestor Hunt.

Ancestor Hunt maintains an extensive collection of links to free digitized newspapers from across the United States. Rather than searching dozens of individual library websites, I can often start with Ancestor Hunt and quickly determine whether a newspaper has already been digitized and placed online.

A New Discovery: Newspaper Finder

Recently, a comment on one of my blog posts by genealogist Marian Wood introduced me to yet another resource: Newspaper Finder.

What makes Newspaper Finder especially useful is that it searches across many of the major newspaper collections—both free and subscription-based—to identify where a particular newspaper title can be found.

According to the site, it currently indexes newspapers available from:

CollectionNewspaper Titles
OldNews38,542
Newspapers.com30,213
GenealogyBank16,814
NewspaperArchive16,732
Advantage Archives10,339
Chronicling America4,583
British Newspaper Archive2,819
Google News Archive2,615

Instead of wondering whether a newspaper is available on Newspapers.com, GenealogyBank, OldNews, or another service, Newspaper Finder can help identify which collections include that title. That can save considerable time—and perhaps even help you determine whether you already have access through a current subscription or a local library.

Three Resources Worth Bookmarking

After Cindy's presentation and my recent discoveries, I've added these three resources to my regular newspaper research toolkit:

  • Library of Congress U.S. Newspaper Directory – Identify newspapers that were published in a community and learn where surviving copies are held.
  • Ancestor Hunt – Locate free digitized newspapers available through libraries, archives, and historical societies.
  • Newspaper Finder – Discover which online newspaper collections include a particular newspaper title.

No single newspaper website contains every newspaper. Using these three tools together makes it much easier to determine what existed, what has been digitized, and where you can access it.

If you've been frustrated trying to locate a newspaper for an ancestor's hometown, these resources may save you hours of searching—and perhaps lead you to your next genealogy discovery.

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