How to Find Old Newspaper Articles Online?

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Old newspapers and magazines provide valuable insights into history and critical events during that time. Now, accessing these resources was limited to local libraries endowed with back issues. Nevertheless, the internet and digitization of content have made it easier for one to access previous issues of old newspapers. This has revolutionized the way we access historical documents, including old newspaper articles.

In this article, We’ll see how to find old newspaper articles online.

Read Old Newspapers Using Free Online Collections

Method 1: Using Google News

Google News is a search engine that indexes thousands of newspaper websites globally and organizes the news into clusters for easy reading. It utilizes OCR in its search to locate stories within newspapers, and the actual content is hosted by other services.

The platform provides an extensive back-catalog of articles spanning various subjects along with old news, letting people narrow their focus down using specific parameters like dates, keywords, and publication names. Google News Archive contains digitized historical newspapers scanned from all over the world.

To access the old newspapers go to this URL “https://news.google.com/newspapers” and then on the search bar type anything that you are looking for

Method 2: Using Trove

Trove, is run by the National Library of Australia and offers researchers an invaluable resource for studies linking to Australian history and genetics. Over 200 years’ worth of newspapers along with historical documents, have been digitized and are freely accessible on the platform.

Users such as historians, genealogists, or any other person interested in exploring the history of this country can search articles by date, title, or using keywords related to their research. All the newspapers are scanned with a lot of keenness and can be viewed online without paying anything or downloaded as PDFs for offline reading.

To access the old newspaper follow these steps:

Step 1: Go to this URL “https://trove.nla.gov.au/” and on the bottom of the search bar click on “Advanced Search”

Step 2: From the advanced search dropdown menu select “Newspapers & Ganetees”

Step 3: In Advanced search section you can search articles by date, title, or using keywords related

Step 4: After that on the bottom click on the “Search icon” to perform the search

Method 3: Library of Congress

The Library of Congress’s Chronicling America project provides digitized historical newspapers going back to the 1800s. It has American newspapers from 1880-1922, including some of the nation’s largest papers.

To access the newspaper go to this URL “https://www.loc.gov/” and on the top right search bar type anything that you are looking for

Method 4: NewspaperARCHIVE

NewspaperARCHIVE is the biggest online archive for old newspapers. It has newspapers from 1753 onward. You can see newspapers from the USA, Canada, the UK, and more countries. It is a good tool for people who study history and love learning about the past.

Its collection has more than 400 million newspaper pages whereby users can peruse through different publications by date or conduct searches on specific phrases in articles. However, while users have to subscribe at $22.99 per month for 12 months to fully use them, they still can preview samples that span across various historical periods and geographical regions.

To access the archive, visit “https://newspaperarchive.com/search/”. Then, enter keywords, adjust paragraph settings, select a location, and finally click the “Search” button to view all the old newspapers.

Method 5: Ancestry.com

Ancestry.com is a genealogy website that offers a vast collection of newspapers and periodicals back to the 1700s. The site also contains family trees uploaded by other users and digitized newspapers. While the primary focus of the website is on genealogical research, it also provides subscribers with access to other historical documents. Although Ancestry.com’s most popular subscription costs $39.99 per month.

Archives of Popular Newspapers

Times Machine: The New York Times gives the Times Machine, an electronic compilation of every issue from 1851 to 2002. The Time Machine enables you to see the newspaper in its original format complete with full images and page layout.
Times Archive: The Times Digital Archive offers digitized copies of every issue from 1785-1985 online. This is an invaluable reference concerning both British history and worldwide occurrences, being presented through the perspective of one of the most distinguished newspapers.
BBC: The BBC On This Day section presents an internet library of notable tales relayed by BBC News back to 1950. Visitors can choose any day and look at the news both from that day and of historical significance today. These consist of TV and radio broadcasts, online materials as well as written documents that form part of British and worldwide history in the 20th Century that are available in the BBC Archive.
Press Display: Press Display offers the latest newspaper issues from all corners of the globe in full-color, full-page format. This is an excellent way to read newspapers from recent days exactly how they appeared when printed.

Identifying Newspapers Using WorldCat.org

WorldCat.org is a worldwide library catalog. It offers an extensive database of holdings for libraries across the globe. By searching the database, you can find newspapers from a certain place or time.

To access the old newspapers using worldcat.org follow these steps:

Click on “Advanced Search” to access more specific search options.
In the first search box, type “mt: new” as a Keyword search.
In the second search box, select either “Publisher location” or “Subject — Geographic Location” and input your desired location.
Tick the box labeled “Serial Publications” to narrow down the search to serial publications.
From the “Format” dropdown menu next to “Subtype limit,” choose “Microform” to specify the format of the search results.

Conclusion

In Conclusion, The digital age makes it easy to access history. Google News, Trove, Library of Congress, NewspaperARCHIVE, and Ancestry.com can journey you back in time so that you may view events through old newspapers. Additionally, archives from well-known news organizations contribute to this search. Furthermore, Worldcat.org discovers which papers were published in certain areas during periods of interest. Not only do such resources satisfy our curiosity about the past, but they also provide valuable tools for historians and other researchers.