Newspaper Archives For Genealogy Research

Local and regional newspapers can be gold mines for researching our family trees. You probably know how useful obituaries are for genealogy, but don’t stop there. Articles, family notices, and classifieds ads can all break down brick walls.

A tiny New Jersey newspaper gave me an account from 1910 of an 18th birthday party that named the young guests and their home towns. Sure, some must have been school pals – but the out-of-towners may be unexplored branches of my family. I’m still following the leads!

Like many genealogy enthusiasts, I’ve taken subscriptions to all the major newspaper archives over the past four years.

You may want to focus on one archive. So, which one is best for you? I’ve put together a collection of articles that will help you decide.

A Comparison Of The Best U.S. Newspaper Archives

three new jersey newspapers from each archive

If you want a comparison of the pros and cons of the different American collections, then check out our round-up of the best U.S. newspaper archives.

You’ll find comparison tables of prices and coverage, with a summary of the pros and cons of each archive.

In-Depth Review Of Ancestry’s Newspapers.com

The pricing tiers for Newspapers.com are so complicated that we’ve written a dedicated article to explain them all. Check out this article on choosing the right subscription option for Newspapers.com.

But what does this archive actually offer? And is it any good? We have a Newspapers.com review that goes deep into using the archive for your family tree research.

In-Depth Review Of NewspaperArchive.com

NewspaperArchive has an extensive archive of U.S. newspapers, but it also has the biggest international collection of the top three websites.

Read our detailed NewspaperArchive.com review.

We’ve also put together our best tips for running searches on the NewspaperArchive website.

In-Depth Review Of GenealogyBank

Unlike the other two sites, GenealogyBank focuses exclusively on U.S. newspapers.

We have an in-depth GenealogyBank review, and an article full of tips on running GenealogyBank searches.

And we go behind the scenes in an article that looks at who owns GenealogyBank.

Newspapers From The United Kingdom

Did your ancestors hail from England, Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland? Or Ireland before the 20th century?

The best archive is based on the collections of the British National Library.

You can read our in-depth British Newspaper Archive review.

And we also take look at who owns the BritishNewspaperArchive website.

Using Your Trial Period Wisely

Most archives offer a week trial period. You can use the trial to evaluate whether the archive has newspapers and content that will be useful for your family research.

We’ve put together a guide and tips on how to maximize your trial period for any newspaper archive.