Newspapers & Family Historians

Local newspapers contain countless references to individuals but are under-used by family historians because they are rarely indexed.

Until recently, a family historian had no idea if a particular paper contained anything about his or her ancestors. Faced with thousands of pages and millions of words, it is hardly surprising that many threw their hands up in despair.

Digitised Newspaper Records

Keyword searches can now zip through 200 years of The Times Digital Archive and retrieve individual names in seconds.

For an example of what can be retrieved in this fashion, see how a national newspaper like The Times provides information on Thomas Hutchinson, a small-scale landowner who lived in the East Cleveland village of Brotton in the mid-nineteenth century.

If a national newspaper can be mined for this kind of detailed information, just imagine what local papers can offer.

The Golden Age of Local Newspapers

Local newspapers began to appear in most areas of the country from the early 18th century onwards: here in the North, the Newcastle Gazette was launched in 1710 and the York Courant in 1715.

The great ‘golden age' of provincial journalism really took off in the mid-19th century when government taxes on newspapers were reduced (1836) and then abolished (1855). Between 1850 and 1900, thousands of local newspapers appeared in every corner of the country.

Comprehensive listings of newspapers for each region of the UK can be seen on Newsplan .

What can local newspapers offer family historians?

They carry regular notices of ‘Births, Marriages and Deaths
They contain obituaries of local people who were well known in their community.
In the 20 th century, they carry photographs of weddings.
If your ancestors were involved in retailing or trade, they might be featured in advertisements.
They might be mentioned if they were ever involved in newsworthy events like fires, accidents, disasters, sporting teams, criminal cases, trials, inquests, politics . . . .

But finding references to particular ancestors is only one way that local newspapers can help family historians.

Once you know something about an ancestor, you can use local newspapers to find out more about their occupations, their communities, their neighbours, the events and times they lived through.

NENA and Family History

High-quality commercial resources like The Times Digital Archive are expensive to produce and expensive to use, but we believe that similar resources can be produced by volunteer networks at a fraction of the cost.

NENA aims to make searchable collections of local newspapers available online at affordable prices.

Family historians are likely to be some of the key users and creators of NENA because it offers them a new and rich resource for their research.

We would be interested in any case studies of family history where newspapers have provided valuable information, and will feature some of them in the pages of NENA. Please contact us.