How to Find Old Newspaper Articles Online

Newspaper articles are read by millions of people each and every day. There are newspapers in every country around the world that report not only the headline news, but also events like marriages, deaths and births.  To locate this sort of information in old newspaper articles, you will need a subscription newspaper database.

The largest old newspaper database available in the U.S. is the one we discuss on this website at www.Old-Newspaper-Articles.com.  The Newspaper Archive database is one of the largest in the world and you will be able to locate information all through the whole span of history of this country.

The collection of digitized newspaper pages goes all the way back into the colonial time of the 1750’s.  This means that you will be able to locate important newsworthy items of the day for the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, U.S. Civil War and all the way up to modern times.

It cost several millions of dollars to create this online database of scanned page images and then to convert these to machine readable text so that you may locate anything you are looking for with keyword searches.

The annual subscription newspaper database rate is extremely low as compared to the value received.  No where else on earth will you be able to locate more information in one place than sitting right at your computer and doing a search.

The newspapers also record history as it happens. At times the events written about make it to the history books. But also recorded in the articles is how life was at the time. What was eaten and how different events impacted the lives of the people in the distribution area of the paper.

One can also observe how the same event would affect different places by reading local newspapers from different parts of a country or different countries.   You will have a better feel for the historical event you are researching when you are able to observe the advertisements of the day and the adjacent news articles published in the same old newspaper article.

Just think, you will be seeing these articles for the first time, just as your ancestors did in their day and age.  The daily events of the world will unfold right before your eyes by using old newspapers in your research.

How would you like to find the announcement of the name of the ship that your ancestors came to America in, on the day it arrived in port?  Even as different modes of transportation were used over time changed what was written in the papers. Back in the 1700’s thru the 1800’s as ships were being built, descriptions were published. The tonnage, beam measurements along with the armament were all written about and for historians there now is an accurate record of such things.

The further back a person goes when reading newspaper articles the more there is to learn. Understanding our past can better equip us to shape a better future for all. Newspaper articles record more than just events and news, they record history and a way of life.

For your very own subscription to the old newspaper database, please click this link: Newspaper Database,  or any of the banners on this website.

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Of all the famous women, newspaper reports of the disappearance and possible survival of Amelia Earhart are still surfacing today, over 50 years after she was last seen alive.

The original reports from July 2, 1937 claim Amelia and her navigator disappeared without a trace. As recently as 1970, there are those claiming that she is still alive. The story of Lieutenant Colonel Joe Klaas and Major Joseph Gervais was printed in the Daily Mail on November 11, 1970, from the state of Maryland.

The story goes on to state that Amelia and her navigator Fred Nooman were intercepted near the island of Hull in the south pacific, by aircraft from the Japanese Imperial Navy. The planes were from the carrier Akagi.

The two officers claim the carrier was waiting there for her for over 2 months and this was a planned operation. The Japanese, upon capturing Amelia, took her to Saipan then to Tokyo.

While there in Tokyo she was held at the Imperial palace until 1945. The reason the American public never knew about it was that she supposedly knew secrets that would embarrass the U.S. Government.

The Japanese and allied forces came to an agreement as part of the unconditional surrender that Amelia’s whereabouts would remain a secret and the Emperor would not be charged with war crimes. Klaas also claims to have met a woman that looks like what Amelia would, like if she was 72 years old.

There is more to this story and much more about famous women, newspaper articles hold not only our history but some great story telling also.

Sign up on the right for a subscription to Newspaper Archive and get the full use of all of the fabulous features of these old news papers.

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Famous historic newspaper headlines, is a loaded statement. To define this first one must ask what is famous to them.  Would it be an accident like “Accident at Three Mile Island Nuclear Reactor,” or “Titanic Plunges into Sea”.

It could also mean a disaster like “San Francisco Earthquake Spreads Destruction” or “ Johnstown Flood of 1889”.  All these are famous but so are “Al Capone Convicted” and “Emily Earhart Disappears in South Pacific”. It is all relevant to what a person knows and how they perceive the world.

And then what is historic. For some it’s “Allied Forces Capture French City”, for others it might be “Cuba Downs U.S. Aircraft”.   Think about it, for a newborn, everything before today is historic. For my parents it is WWII.

For me I think about all I know and have lived through, but as an American the most famous historic newspaper headlines I have ever read happened September 12, 2001, the day after the cowardly attack on America by devil worshiping cavemen. I read “Our Nation Saw Evil”, “An American Tragedy” and “Mass Murder”.

I was at work in a laboratory preparing for a visit from corporate headquarters. I did not believe it at first.  I took my time walking down the corridor to the conference room.  When I went though the door, up on the big screen was the first of the towers just beginning to fall. All I could do is watch helplessly.

Such a senseless act of brutality committed by so few that effected so many.

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The worst natural plight of human suffering up to that time was the great Irish potato famine. Immigration to the United States by the Irish saw a dramatic increase, but not all were given a warm welcome.

As reported by The World, a New York paper, on September 12, 1897, what had happened 50 years ago in Ireland? The population of Ireland dropped almost in half, from 8,175,124 to 4,706,102 in those 50 years since the famine.

In August of 1997 The Post Standard  retold the story again 150 years after the potato famine that caused wide spread immigration of the Irish to the rest of the world.  1.5 Million left their homeland not for a better life but for life itself. Tens of thousands to a million of Irish were dead or dying and it was either starve or leave.

Most of the famine immigrants went to the United States, Canada and Australia where they were met a hostile reception. There were just too many in such a short period of time and most did not have much money if any.

Another causality of the famine was the families and traceable ancestry. So many died so fast and the survivors scattered so quickly that most relatives lost track of each other.

To this day there are those that fear prejudice. About 5 years ago I saw an elderly man on the side of the road. He had a flat tire and the temperature was over 100F. I stopped and changed the tire for him.  He would only tell me his first name until I was done.  When I had finished I asked him why he was so secretive. He then told me his last name and that he was Irish.

He explained he was scared I would just leave him if I knew he was Irish, he was so used to the prejudice. I explained I was also of some Irish ancestors and I had no ill feelings towards him, but I could tell he had been scared by the past. I think it is sad that the 1847 potato famine immigration to America still has negative effects over 150 years later.

If you are searching for your Irish ancestors or any possible mention of them in the old newspaper articles of the day, the best newspapers to search are the Boston and New York papers.  Many new arrivals would advertise for lost relatives as all they knew was that their kin had come before them and they had no idea where they were now.

By clicking on the banners on this website you will be able to sign up for a trial subscription and during that time you may search all of the millions of newspapers in the NewspaperArchive database.

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The study of genealogy is often called building your own family tree. Years ago it was reserved for old people who were retired and had a lot of free time on their hands. Now with the internet there is a multitude of reference websites for genealogy and family history.

Much time is wasted by those that believe they can connect up to some famous person in history because that is what they were always told. It may turn out to be true or it may not, but if you do not go through the standard research steps, one by one, you will just be spinning your wheels and wasting time.

So here is a free set of 21 ways to help you grow your own family tree.

1 -  Start with what you know about your immediate family and work backwards. This is the most important point and you must do it this way.  You will thank me for this because each younger generation has the clues to finding the older generation.  You must work from modern day backwards.

2 – Interview your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and all known relatives, especially the older ones.  Most of them will have some clues that you will be able to use in your search.

3 – Start now to get in the habit of using spiral notebooks for recording your data.  They will be very handy in keeping your research in some form of chronological order.  You will have plenty of loose sheets of photocopies and miscellaneous notes to file but if you use the spiral notebooks now they will be a big help as the years go by to be able to go back and refer to.

4 – Make a Pedigree Chart of your direct ancestors only, and then make Family Group Sheets (FGS) for all of the married couples.  The FGS is probably the most important document to create because this is one place that you can see each family unit with all of their detailed vital statistics and dates.  There is a place for the husband and wife, each of their parent’s names, and all of their children and who the children married.

5 – Use all of the Federal Census and State Census data that you can get on each person. Here you will get names and dates and immigration facts and you will be able to see the neighbors within their communities.

6 – Visit the cemeteries where you know ancestors are buried and record the stones of known people of interest and also note the names and dates of the people that are buried immediately adjacent to them.  Chances are you will later find that they are related.  The cemetery office or sexton might also have more detailed information than what is on the stone or a stone might be lacking but they would have the burial information.

7 – After you discover the death dates then find the newspaper obituaries because they will give additional information on other family member’s names.

8 – After you have recorded a few weeks of data, go back and interview the relatives that you had visited with previously.  They will no doubt have remembered more details to tell you and when you arrive and show them what you have accomplished to date it will no doubt jog their memory and you will come up with some brand new clues.  Always ask if they might have any old family bibles, diaries, family records, old letters, family photographs, etc., that you might be able to copy.  These will lead you to many more details that will help to confirm relationships.

9 – There are many thousands of free websites that you will be able to get information from on the Internet.  If you get serious about this endeavor you might also want to subscribe to some of the pay sites where you can get actual census details online. See: footnote.

10 – Some of the often used sites that I refer to are: ancestry.com, genealogy.com, familysearch.org (the Mormon site,) cyndislist.com, google.com, mapquest.com, rootsweb.com, USGenWeb.org (going down to the basic county Genweb pages will be most helpful,) and many more very useful free sites that you can find with a quick Google search.

11 – Join a Genealogical Society.  There will usually be one near the area that you live or at least join one at a regional or statewide level.  The information and education that you will get from them will be invaluable.  They usually sponsor seminars and training classes that will also be most helpful.

12 – Get a Genealogical Software Program for your computer and document your sources to all of the data as you enter the information into your database.  There are many free or shareware programs that you can download off the net.  I like Legacy Family tree but there are many others available.

13 – Once your data is computerized you will be able to look at it in standard chart formats and print out nice reports, and share data with others through the mail or email.  Most of these programs also have ways of adding scanned or downloaded images into your database which will make for a very professional looking report.  There is also room to add biographical text which will keep the data from becoming dry to the casual reader and you can put meat on the bones of your long gone family members.

14 – Sharing with others will always bring nice results in return.  You will find that most everyone in this hobby is willing to share their data and you will be able to keep building with the use of work done by others.

15 – Some other places that you will want to become acquainted with are the records that are available in various courthouses, such as land records, estate records, guardianships, and various civil records.  These places will give you specific details that you will be able to receive no where else.

16 – Your state records for Births, Deaths and marriages will be located usually at your state capital, some states have them published on line and you should do a Google search to find them.

17 – The Social Security Death Index (SSDI) is online and free.  It can be searched at Ancestry.com.  You can also download many free forms such as census extraction forms from Ancestry.com.

18 -  There are some very good sites that you will be able to look at old maps, current and old topographical maps, aerial and satellite photos and many other very useful free sites of interest. It is best to Google these terms also because the sites keep changing.

19 – This is a hobby that will consume you if you get hooked, but set some goals and go out and record that data.

20 – Buy books, take courses, have fun.

21 -  Take advantage of the FREE TRIAL at Newspaper Archive from this website. You may cancel at any time and there is no better place to find as much information all in one location.

(The Free Trial period has ended.)

Additional note, if you have been a reader of this website for some time now, you will notice that there is a new product being offered called the “Step by Step Genealogy Guide” over on the right hand side. It is filled with a ton of great ideas for you to use to help grow your family tree. This book is available to you instantly by just clicking on it.

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There were many Nazi Germany newspaper headlines during the war. Some of them caught little attention like the Daily Register’s headline on May 17, 1945 which read ”Believe High Nazis Trying to Get to Japan.”

This was the story reported when a U-boat was captured in the Atlantic. On board were three Nazi Air Force Generals. Also on board were the bodies of two Japanese sailors that had committed hara kari before the u-boat surrendered.

Nazi Germany Newspaper Headlines - flickr

The Nevada State Journal had a powerful Nazi headline on September 6, 1944. They ran a story titled “Air Fleets Huge Armies Await Orders, Final Ultimatum: Surrender or Else!” the story goes that there were Allied armies on both the western and eastern frontiers of Germany and 3000 heavy bombers posed to hit the Reich with the greatest air blow in history unless Adolf Hitler capitulated and surrendered.

There were rumors that the ultimatum to be delivered was for the unconditional surrender of the Nazi’s or they would face a “holocaust of destruction such as the Nazi’s never dreamed could be visited on their soil.” The article went on to say “If an ultimatum were handed Germany and rejected, the allies probably would smite the Reich with climactic offensive of whirlwind intensity.”

Such was the mood of the world when the end of world war two was within site. This was after a dozen years of terror and atrocities by Nazi Germany on the world. The world was ready and capable of revenge on what was known as the worst regime ever known to man. There are more Nazi Germany Newspaper headlines for you to read.

Subscribe to Newspaper Archive:

Sign up on the right for a subscription to Newspaper Archive and get the full use of all of the fabulous features of these old papers.

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Famous headlines are always making news but so are wrong headlines. There are many examples but the most famous in America is still “Dewey Defeats Truman” that was posted on November 3, 1948. Mistakes like this happen because of the rush to be first by the newspapers. The paper that hits the newsstands first with a breaking news report will sell out first, so it is all about money.

Dewey Defeats Truman Famous Headlines

Another famous headline was on April 15, 1912 when many newspapers reported that the “Titanic had hit an iceberg but was saved”. There was one newspaper that went with the facts and reported that the Titanic had sunk. This newspaper was the New York Times and they were unfortunately correct.

The type of headline that has been wrong the most are the reports on the death of a famous person. The famous people that were reported dead before they actually were, are Fidel Castro, John Paul II, Yasser Arafat and Joe DiMaggio. All but one is now dead, but the first report of their death was at times years before the actual event happened.  Most are just another case of a reporter not checking his sources properly before submitting his article.

The New York Post has one of the top two famous headlines ever printed when they ran the headline of “Headless body in topless bar”, this was on April 15, 1983.

This goes to show that just because it is printed does not make it true but famous headlines that were wrong will always be remembered.  In this modern day time with the Internet this sort of thing is likely to happen even more as people Blog, email and tweet current events as they happen, (or not,) and you will have to use care in accepting things at face value.

Historically newspapers did get it right the large majority of the time as there usually were editorial guidelines in place to double and triple check facts and events before they were put to bed and printed.  Still it is fun to find the famous headlines that were wrong any way.

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A question was posed to me the other day. It was “How do I find an old death notice”. The answer depends on how close you are to the deceased or whether you know them or not. For a famous person like John Wayne, it is easy. There are people that still love and admire this movie star and can tell you his birthday or the day he died which was June, 11 1979.

If the person is a part of history, most history books can help like Abraham Lincoln. He died on April 15, 1865. This of course is one way, or just use any search engine on the internet. If the person you need or want to find a death notice for is not famous but a relative then the family bible can be a valuable source. Most families record not only deaths, but births, wedding and even some divorces nowadays.

If the person is not so famous and not a relative, then the local library could hold the key. But this path would require you to know approximately the right date and where this person of interest died.

Luckily today there is a large listing of over 1.14 Billion articles and over 3.42 billion names that have appeared in old newspapers organized all on one web site, Newspaper Archive, and is the most complete source of old newspapers on the internet. With a search engine that can narrow down your search to region of the country or countries, date or range of dates, this site makes looking up death notices easy.

How do I find an old death notice, I go to the web site that has the history written on old newspapers, the newspaper archive.  This is a subscription website but the cost is minimal compared to the amount of historical research you will be able to do.

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Elvis Presley newspaper headlines were many over the years of the famous actor, musician’s life and followed for many years after his death. Here on Old Newspaper Articles we show you how to locate articles such as from the Abilene Reporter News on March 1, 1960, it only involved good news. The headlines read “Due back next month, Returning Elvis Presley has serious acting goal”.  Sergeant Elvis Presley was described in the article as a thing as peculiar to the 20th century as the atomic bomb, Walter Reuther and frozen chicken legs. This was the point of Elvis’s return to civilian life and from a $25 a week truck driver to a $25,000 a week National Institution.

Elvis at movie The Doors - flickr

On the same page was another article about Elvis. This was after two years of army duty and no concerts. The headlines were “Elvis Leaving Waco Friends”. In this article it describes how he was flying back to Texas from Germany to complete his discharge for the Army. It went on to say he was leaving behind a 16 year old school girl American high school girl that he had been quietly dating for months. The pretty brunette was Priscilla Beaulieu. She was quoted as saying “I am very fond of Elvis but you shouldn’t think there is anything serious”. She was unsure if she would see Elvis upon his return to the states but said “I certainly would like to”. Priscilla’s father was a captain in the US Air force stationed at Wiesbaden Air Base in Germany.

Of course there are also headlines like the one printed on August 17, 1977 from the Del Rio News-Herald, “King of Rock ’n Roll Elvis Presley Dead”.  When looking for old newspaper articles you will discover that there are many more Elvis Presley newspaper headlines on Newspaper Archive.  Sign up on the right for a subscription to Newspaper Archive and get the full use of all of the fabulous features of these old papers.

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