The Sensational and the Factual

Back in May last year, I wrote a post covering a few free online newspaper websites (you can see it here).  The other day I noticed one of the subscription newspaper services promoting their access to the Illustrated London News, and I thought, “That’s odd, I was sure there was a free website for that.”  

And, indeed, there is: John Weedy’s Collection of the ILN from Victorian times to 1973.  Browse his site to experience the sensational and the factual.  Listed for each issue are headlines, sometimes obituaries, fascinating cover pages and other illustrations. You can also choose a specific year to explore using the grid section of the page. 

This led me to revisit the free newspaper sites I have bookmarked on my web browser, some of which I've listed below.  Then as now, journalists wrote and published stories from around the world, so you shouldn’t dismiss searching for your relatives in newspapers from other countries – you could find them mentioned in the last place you’d expect. 

📜 Papers Past – the website of the National Library of New Zealand, which contains not only newspapers but magazines, journals, letters, diaries, and parliamentary papers.  Search using your own terms, or explore by title or region.

📜 Trove –  hosted by the Australian National Library.  I covered this site in last year’s post, and yesterday they posted an appeal for help in correcting the text in their online news collections.  Since much of the indexed text has been interpreted by computer, there are errors that will be obvious to human eyes and easy to edit.  This is a great way to “give back” to the research resources you enjoy at no cost, as it will increase the accuracy of search results.  Learn more about the project here. 

📜 Chronicling America – the United States Library of Congress hosts digitised newspaper images from 1789 to 1963.  These are searchable by keywords, dates and states, or if you know the name of the newspaper, by title.

📜 Old Fulton New York Postcards – despite the name, this low-tech site covers newspapers from the U.S. and Canada for 1795-2007.  Enjoy listening to some vintage radio drama while you search the site, and be sure to peruse the Help page, which also includes a link to let you browse the historical photos and papers that the site holds.

I couldn’t finish this whistle-stop tour of free newspaper collections without mentioning the fantastic services provided by public libraries and archives around the world.  If you like nothing more than leafing through the original newspapers your ancestors would have read, this is a superb option.  Contact your nearest library or record repository to find out about their hard-copy collections.