Thursday 29 November 2012

Ancestry launches Newspapers-only archive

Ancestry.com has launched a brand-new sister site called Newspapers.com.

This new database has introduced itself with a mega package of 25million pages from 820 newspapers published across the USA covering the late 1700s to the early days of our own century.

Searching can be done by both date and location.

To test it out, I made a search for newspapers in Massachusetts and found two options: The Lowell Sun, with 4,328 pages across 1893-1938, and The North Adams Transcript, with 13,301 pages from 1930 -1976.

I also took a look at the New York Times collection and found it covered the years 1852-1923 with 378,581 pages.

With its wide selection of publications across the cities and regions of the United States, a site like this can produce outstanding genealogical surprises, and there's a 7-day free trial on offer to entice researchers. To sign up, you have to register and provide credit card details (you can cancel online before the trial ends). If you opt for a subscription, there are monthly and annual options available, and the costs seem quite reasonable.

There's more from Ancestry here, or just go straight to the new site.