I see that question pop up every few days on Facebook genealogy pages, on various websites, and I often get asked that when I present lectures at seminars and conferences. The answer? The best one for your family history research is the one that has the newspapers for your ancestral areas!
I am not trying to be flip, but that’s really the correct response. How do you know which one that is? Many sites require a subscription to read the actual articles, but it is possible to see what they have before you click on the subscribe button and give your credit card number.
No matter whether you pay for the subscription or locate a free site with digitized newspapers, be sure to see if they have what you need. Do this even before you take up the offer of a trial subscription. Then check to see the dates that the digitization covers. If you are looking for a 1909 obituary, but the town newspaper on the website, stops at 1890, you need to look elsewhere. Many larger city newspapers printed local news columns or tidbits from around the state, so it could have something you need even though the paper is not from the ancestral home town.
Reading the Terms of Use for membership or subscription is a must to see whether you can copy an obituary or wedding notice to put in your family history, post on social media, or share with others. The guidelines are strict.
Some tips before paying:
Newspapers.com: Click on the Browse tab and look at the offering by country and then by state or other jurisdiction. For this one, be sure to look at the All Access membership from Ancestry.com. That one includes access to Newspapers.com, Fold3.com, and Ancestry Academy. and of course, Ancestry.com. Ancestry.com and Fold3 do have some newspapers.
NewspaperArchive.com: Click on Browse US Papers or Browse All Papers to see what is included for various localities.
GenealogyBank.com: Scroll down the page to Search U.S., Newspaper Title by State to see what this site has for your ancestral localities.
An archive solely for a specific newspaper: If you are looking for the Hometown Dispatch and it does have an online archive, it will generally be just for that specific title. It may not go back as far as you need and could offer a combination of fee and paid articles.
This post does not include all subscription websites. Your public library may offer access to some of these and others with digitized newspapers. Our library cards become more valuable all the time.
In a future post, I will cover some of the websites that have free access to digitized newspapers. Another post will cover places to determine what does exist in microfilm or digitized versions for your ancestral localities.
© 2015, Paula Stuart-Warren. All rights reserved.
A good site for NY State is the state one: http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/nysnp/. However, as it was unfunded in 2007 it is not up to date. I gave away newspapers from out of my county as the library had no more room to store them, and those papers are now in their home county. The holdings cannot be relied on, but the statements of where and when published can be. Also, for NY there is https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/New_York_Gazetteers, which refers to books that have lists of newspapers and when and where they were published. Many of these books are from the 19th century, and therefore are very accurate for the early days of settlement. I am sure that there are analogous items for other states.