Why I Love Newspapers.com

I subscribe to three paid newspaper subscription sites: NewspaperArchive.com, Genealogybank and Newspapers.com. As a journalism major in college, I had always been something of a news junkie until recent years when all of the "bad news" in the media made me cancel my newspaper subscriptions and stop watching TV news. You know the saying, "If it bleeds it leads." But I still feel as though printer's ink runs in my veins and I absolutely love Love LOVE old newspapers for my genealogy research.

The team from Newspapers.com at the recent conference
 of the National Genealogical Society in St. Charles, MO.
I HAD to stop at their booth to tell them how much I LOVE the site!

Comparing the Big Three

Over the past thirty or so years of genealogy research, I've had on-again off-again periods of being active. In one of my off-again periods, I subscribed to NewspaperArchive and I was searching non-genealogy topics. It became a valuable resource for me once I returned to family history research. That is, until they discontinued carrying images from some of my favorite newspapers because of the end of some licensing contracts. Even with their increase in fees (close to $200/year now, billed every six months), I've maintained my subscription because I continue to find articles about long lost relatives within their pages. Compared to the other sites, I believe their pricing is too high, but I've found enough information there to justify the expense.

GenealogyBank is also a favorite newspaper subscription site and it also includes more contemporary obituaries which has moved my research forward considerably by examining the lists of survivors. The annual cost for new subscribers is about $70. Monthly subscriptions are available. You can also get a 30-day trial for under $10.

Whenever anyone asks about which paid site is the best, my answer is always "Whichever one has the most newspapers in the area where your ancestors lived." That being said, I maintain my paid subscriptions to all three sites and will continue to do so as long as I can afford to.

The annual subscription to Newspapers.com is $79.95, but with my subscription to Fold3, I get it for $39.95. I call that a bargain! Monthly subscriptions are available for $7.95.

Why I Love Newspapers.com the Most

That brings me around to Newspapers.com, an Ancestry company, which has become my newspaper subscription site of choice. Of the three big players in paid subscription sites, I find Newspapers.com the easiest to navigate and search. I can search by my ancestor's name or keywords. I can also search within specific newspapers. I have to say that it was a little weird when I found articles about myself or that I had written in those pages! But it was amazing when I discovered several Letters to the Editor written by my grandfather, William Kelly (writing as W. L. Kelly). It was so nice to know where I inherited my spunk and tongue-in-cheek delivery style.

Newspapers.com makes it very easy to clip an article. You have the option of keeping your clippings private (which I do most of the time) or make them public. If you want to share the clipping using social media, you need to make the clipping public.

As of this morning, the site has more than 102 million page images available to search!

Let me take you through a few screen clippings to show you the ease of using Newspapers.com.

This is a screen shot of some of my clippings on Newspapers.com

As you are saving your clippings, make sure you click on "Edit" and add a description of the clipping, using your ancestor's name and keywords. Think of this as writing a headline for the article. Otherwise, you will not be able to search for clippings about a specific ancestor. Yes, I learned this one the hard way, and I'm still back-tracking, adding those names and keywords to my clippings.

See how easy it is to save to Ancestry!

You just select which tree and person
to whom you are saving the clipping!

Share With Others!

This may be one of my favorite perks of the site. It makes it very easy to share the clipping with other researchers. I'm a relatively new fan of Pinterest, even though I've had an account since it first came on the scene. I have a Pinterest board, Ancestor News, where I can share clippings with other researchers. I also set up a Facebook group for other Pecht family researchers and I can share clippings with those cousins. Just remember, the clipping must be made Public if you want to share it.

It is still up to you to explore each of the paid sites and determine which has the most bang for your buck for the geographic areas where your people lived.

Screen captures are from Newspapers.com and are used here for educational purposes. No violation of copyright of the images is intended.