Finding old newspapers: obituaries, marriage notices and birth announcements

What old newspapers can tell you

• The Library of Congress says newspaper articles about family members were probably not printed in every national paper, so the key is finding the local newspaper your family would have appeared in. ^[4]
• Its training slides add a prompt: ask why this person would be in a newspaper, for example a sensational accident or crime, scandal or gossip, or involvement in politics or a community organization. ^[5]
• Beyond obituaries and marriage announcements, the Library says you may find headlines and social mentions that show daily life in your ancestors' community. The slides also mention the local notices column. ^[7][5]

Free sources first

Chronicling America (Library of Congress)

• It is a collection of select digitized newspaper pages through 1963, produced by the National Digital Newspaper Program (a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress). ^[1]
• The Library says it has millions of newspaper pages from nearly every state and territory, and adds new pages regularly. Cultural institutions in each state choose which pages to digitize, so coverage is selective. ^[1]
• The Library of Congress provides free access. ^[7]
• The Library believes the newspapers are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. It says papers published more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety; newer pages may include copyrighted third-party material. ^[2]
• Not every issue is online. Some issues or pages are marked "not digitized", usually because they were missing from the microfilm used for scanning. ^[3]
• The National Digital Newspaper Program's own news lists a major website upgrade on August 4, 2025, so screens and labels in older tips (2016 and 2019) may differ from what you see today. ^[8]

Directory of U.S. Newspapers in American Libraries (Library of Congress)

• It is a searchable index of newspapers published in the United States since 1690. It helps you identify which titles existed for a place and time and how to access them. The Library of Congress does not hold every title listed. ^[6]
• If the newspapers for your area are not digitized, the Library's genealogy guide says to use the Directory to see which repositories hold them. ^[7]
• The same guide says that for items you identify in library catalog entries you can visit the Library of Congress or ask your local library to borrow them from other libraries through interlibrary loan; the Library does not loan local or family history items itself. It does not say whether newspaper microfilm in particular can be borrowed. ^[7]

State programs: what the lists say

• The University of Oregon's list says there are digital newspaper programs in every state: some have their own searchable database and others use Chronicling America to host their content. The table below follows that list. ^[13]
• The University of North Texas Libraries keeps a similar list of state programs. ^[12]

Library and archive access to subscription databases

• The Texas State Library says Ancestry requires a subscription and suggests checking with your local library to see if it provides access to Ancestry Library Edition. ^[14]
• Through an agreement with Ancestry, the Library of Virginia gives Virginians free access to select Ancestry content. You need a free Ancestry account; your location in Virginia is checked, and full Ancestry access is available in the Library's reading rooms. ^[15]
• The National Archives says Ancestry.com and Fold3 are free to use at any National Archives facility, and says it does not endorse them. ^[9]

Each state guide on this site lists how many Chronicling America titles the Library of Congress shows for that state. Choose your state.

State digital newspaper programs

Program names and institutions below come from the University of Oregon list ^[13]. We did not open every site: some blocked our fetch tool and a few links did not respond, so we link only the ones that opened or only refused automated access, and we do not say what any of them holds or charges. For states marked "Chronicling America", that list says the content is hosted there.

How to search

1. Find the right newspaper first. Use the Directory of U.S. Newspapers to see which papers were published where and when, and the "All Digitized Titles" list to see which are online. ^[4]
2. Limit your search to the time and place the person would likely have lived, especially for common last names. ^[5]
3. Vary the name. Try the full name, first and middle initials and last name (for example W.D. Barrows), maiden name, or just a last name, and use spelling variants. First names may be abbreviated (Chas., Wm.). ^[11]
4. Search married women under their husband's name too. The Library says they were often printed as "Mrs." followed by the husband's name. ^[4][5][11]
5. Try titles as well as names. The Library's slides list Mr, Mrs, Miss, Messrs, Dr., Judge, Capt., Col., Lt., Master, Sheriff, Mayor and Rev. among the name variations to try. ^[5]
6. For names, try a proximity search. The Library says a first name within five words of a last name catches variations such as last name first and initials; its search guide offers 5 and 10 word limits. ^[4][3]
7. Add keywords for context, such as birth, death, obituary, marriage and engagement, but not so many that you find nothing. Try synonyms: wedding, marriage, nuptial. ^[4][11]
8. Expect character-recognition errors. The text is machine-read and left uncorrected, so the Library suggests shorter words and phrases. The Maryland brochure gives "e" read as "o" as an example. ^[3][11]
9. Use words of the period. The Library notes that historic terms often return more than modern ones. ^[3]
10. Too many results: limit to a state or newspaper title. Too few: try alternate terms, broaden the subject and relax date or state limits. ^[3]
11. Search related names and places as well: schools, organizations, street names and family businesses. ^[11]
12. Come back later. The Library's slides suggest checking the site every other year or so for new results. ^[5]
13. Save what you find: download the page PDF or use the clipping tool for a smaller section. ^[4]

Paid archives: one option

Chronicling America covers select pages through 1963 and is not a complete record of every town and year. When a free archive does not cover the place or years you need, a paid archive is one option. Newspapers.com is one such archive; this section only repeats what its own pages say. ^[1]

• Newspapers.com describes itself as an online newspaper archive with more than 1 billion pages from more than 31,700 newspapers in the United States and beyond. Its About page says you can search or browse to find notices of births, marriages and deaths. ^[17]
• Its pages say every page is indexed by character recognition, which can miss or misread words in older papers or unclear images. The Help page says to use the search-result preview to check matches, and describes filters by date, location and newspaper title, plus browsing by place, newspaper and date. ^[20]
• Its plans page lists two subscriptions. "Basic" gives access to limited years (the page says 324 million+ pages). "Publisher Extra" is described as unlimited access that includes papers still under copyright, typically 1931 and newer. We do not quote prices because they change; see the plans page. ^[18]
• Its free-trial page describes a 7-day trial that requires a credit or debit card and says you are charged the full subscription price at the end unless you cancel at least 2 days before the trial ends. One trial per user. We did not start a trial. ^[19]

Newspapers.com (plain link, not an affiliate link)

We are not affiliated with Newspapers.com, we have not tested it, and this is a plain link: no link on this site earns us a commission today. Check your library or archive for free access first. See the affiliate disclosure.