Newspaper articles can be a fantastic resource for researching family history. You can discover information about an ancestor's criminal history, details of their workplace or see a mention in the births, marriages and deaths column amongst numerous other examples. Newspapers in the UK can be national or local, with many available to view online. Where you find a mention of your ancestor, you can use this to find a corroborating source to confirm the information you have found. This may include using census records to confirm their occupation or a birth certificate to prove their appearance in a births column.
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UK newspaper history
Newspapers in the United Kingdom began as pamphlets of local news in the 17th century. The first official British newspaper was the Weekly News, published in London in 1622. Others followed, including The Oxford Gazette in 1665 (now known as The London Gazette) and Worcester Postman in 1690. The first regular daily newspaper in England was the Daily Courant which was first published in 1702. Another notable newspaper, The Times, has been published since 1785. In 1855 stamp duty on newspapers was abolished, leading to the creation of many more titles. This, tied in with increasing levels of literacy, increased newspaper readership greatly. You are therefore more likely to find your ancestor named in a UK newspaper from this date.
Early newspapers were irregular and usually focused on politics. Not all of these have survived. Early examples date from the English Civil War which began in 1641, with some papers favouring the Cavaliers and others supporting the Roundheads[1]. These early newspapers can be of interest to discover when was happening in your ancestors local area at the time, especially politically.
Illustrations were introduced in newspapers from the mid 19th-century including sketches and drawings for advertisements. Photographs can be found from the beginning of the 20th century, although initially these were only found in national newspapers due to the cost of printing them.
Examples of genealogical information in newspapers
There are various different reasons that a person may be named in a newspaper column or article. These include:
- Birth, marriage and death column
- Funeral notice or obituary
- Coroner's inquest report
- Probate notices
- Details of a criminal court case as the accused, victim or witness
- Military information including promotion, medals awarded, reported missing or taken as a prisoner of war
- Listing in a 'wanted column' advertising a job opportunity, such as a housekeeper or gardener
- Fetes and local meet-ups including competition winners e.g flower shows and ploughing contests
- Business advertisements
- Buying and selling pages
- Letters
Through newspaper articles, you may discover information about your ancestor's marriage ceremony including the hymns that were sung and details of the brides dress. You may find your ancestors suffered a stillbirth which were sometimes listed in the births column. Other miscellaneous pieces of information you may find include military notices giving a physical description of soldiers who had deserted, details of ships with crew and passengers listed and notices of engagement.
Accessing UK newspapers
There are various websites on which you can find UK newspapers available digitally. These have been scanned using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) meaning they have been read and transcribed by a computer rather than a person.
Genealogy subscription websites such as MyHeritage offer access to UK newspapers via OldNews.com. This is a collection of nearly 4 million pages that can be searched by name, key word, publication title, date and place of publication.
Not all newspapers have yet been digitised and more are added online frequently. Local libraries and archives often hold copies of archived newspapers for researchers to browse. You can search The British Library's catalogue to see a list of all UK newspapers. Some UK newspapers have their own digital archives you can access, including The Times Archive.
Tips for searching newspaper collections
When searching for mentions of your ancestor in online newspaper collections, you can choose to search by their name or using another keyword. Their name may be in various formats such as John Jones, J Jones and Mr Jones. This means multiple searches will need to be done to find all relevant articles. You can choose to filter the results, such as by date and location where relevant.
OCR means we have access to a wide range of newspaper titles much quicker than if we had to wait for them to be transcribed by hand. Unfortunately the process is not fool proof and errors have occured. This is more likely in the older newspapers of the 17th and 18th centuries when newspaper text was thicker and harder for a computer to read. Certain letters are often misread such as g and y, meaning that some words are interpreted inaccurately. For example, the surname Taylor may be transcribed as Taglor. Where you find this happening, you can choose to search by the incorrect name to be sure you are gathering as much information about the person in question as possible.
You may choose to browse newspapers by date or title. This can be useful for researching local events that may have affected your ancestor, such as notable weather events.
Be aware that information printed in a newspaper is not always reliable. Names may be spelt incorrectly and ages may be wrong. News was often exaggerated to seem more interesting to the reader. There are also examples of political bias.
See also
Explore more about UK newspaper records
- UK Newspaper records from Oldnews.com via MyHeritage
- Getting the scoop on your ancestors from old newspapersat Legacy Family Tree Webinars
- In Black and White: Finding Historical Newspapers From Around the Worldat Legacy Family Tree Webinars
- Newspaper Research Strategies Using MyHeritageat Legacy Family Tree Webinars
- 4 Incredible Family History Finds from Old Newspaperson the MyHeritage blog
References
- ↑ "The English Civil War and the rise of journalism". The History Press. Retrieved 2024-08-16.