Records Information
The British Newspaper Archive
Read about historical events at the time they were happening. Perhaps you'll discover your ancestor in their local newspaper?
British Newspaper Archive records
The British Newspaper Archive records are digitised copies of over 3 million local newspapers from the British Library collection. This is an ongoing project with up to 40 million newspapers being scanned and published over the next 10 years.
The newspaper collection has been divided into categories. You can enter one or more keywords and then narrow down your search by county and/or year. The collection has also been sub-divided into articles, family notices, advertisements, illustrations and miscellaneous.
The British Newspaper Archive records can offer a real insight in to how your ancestors lived. Many of the articles provide great context and detail, which other records can't give you. You may simply find the birth of an ancestor in one of the papers or perhaps court records describing how one of your ancestors was imprisoned for stealing chickens. As well as searching for your own family why not try looking for key historical events such as the Titanic disaster or the death of Queen Victoria.
We have a full list of the current newspapers available to search here. Please note the year range is inclusive, so there may be some years where there is just one issue, or some (in between) where there are none.