Don’t forget the humble newspaper as a source of family history! Google has many newspapers on-line for free!
In my early days of the hunt I spent many hundreds of hours at the library scrolling through microfilm of old newspapers. It was tedious. There was no search functions. Just my eyes and reading page after page of newspapers hoping to see some words jump off the page.
Many newspapers but not all
The Google News Archive has a colourful history and at one time was going to save us all a ton of time by digitizing and indexing all newspapers that were ever put on microfilm. Unfortunately the complexity of the task was beyond even that of Google. You can read about it on Wikipedia.
Basically as far as Google is concerned their attempt is over and they have posted what they have. What you see is what you get.
It’s free!
Google has these newspapers available free of charge! It’s not as large of a collection as you will find on Newspapers.com but it’s free!
Hopefully you will find some of the newspapers you need in your research on their news archive site. If it isn’t there you will have to try another supplier on the internet or head down to your local library or University.
Links to my favourites
Regina, Saskatchewan Newspapers
- The Leader (1890-1908)
- The Morning Leader (1901-1930)
- The Leader-Post (1930-1987)
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Newspapers
- The Saskatoon Phoenix (1902-1928)
- Saskatoon Star-Phoenix (1851-1967)
Windsor, Ontario Newspapers
- Windsor Herald (1855-1856)
- The Windsor Record (1917-1918)
- The Windsor Daily Star (1935-1959)
- The Windsor Star (1959-1986)
- The Saturday Windsor Star (1981-1986)
