“A to Z Genealogy Tips – Fortnightly Series”

Newspapers offer insights into daily life, events, and community connections.

Obituaries, announcements, advertisements, and articles provide dates, relationships, and social context.  Researchers may find out stories about their ancestors lives they didn’t know or establish facts that may verify whether some family stories  or legends were true.  As our ancestors lived in a different era, articles can assist with understanding some of the choices families made.  Digitized collections allow keyword searches.

Some State Libraries also have copies of newspapers on microfilm and some give access to more recent newspapers through their online services if you are a member.  Trove is available to search at home for Australian newspapers and Papers Past for New Zealand newspapers.

Newspapers bring ancestors’ lives to life, they can gives us more than just names, dates and places.

Search historic newspapers for your family and see if you can uncover a story or two your didn’t know about your ancestors.