If you want to consult the pages of an old newspaper on a specific day, to remember the news of that day or because you are carrying out research work, going to the newspaper library of the media in question can be a solution, if it provides this service openly.
What happens is that many newspapers do not allow digital consultation of their historical archive or simply do not have it digitized. You can also try it in a library – whether in physical or digital format – to consult the pages of an old newspaper in the town where it is located, but availability may be limited.
However, now there is another option. This is the OldNews.com websitewhich has just been launched by MyHeritage – the company that allows you to acquire and carry out a genealogical study online based on your DNA – and which gives access to thousands of historical newspapers, mostly from the 19th and 20th centuries.
Both large-circulation national newspapers and small local newspapers from around the world can be found in the historical archives in this service. All pages have been included applying optical character recognition (OCR) techniques.
OldNews adds millions of new pages from thousands of newspapers a month, according to MyHeritage. Currently you can consult thousands of newspapers from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Austria, the Netherlands and Australia.
Although they are not found in Spanish newspapers – according to the company, they will be included “soon” in their offer – the service can be used in Spanish, as well as in 10 other languages (English, French, German, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish and Portuguese).
OldNews allows you to use a powerful search engine so that you can easily find information about a specific person or topic by simply entering those keywords.
Of course, it is a paid service (99 euros per month), although you can enjoy it – and satisfy your occasional curiosity – thanks to the free trial period it offers for seven days.
Possibly researchers, journalists, educators, historians… find the service interesting enough to subscribe.
Whether you pay for it or have free access for seven days, you will be able to use all its tools. For example, you can search for the name of your ancestors, browse headlines for a specific date, or even analyze the evolution of birth announcements and obituaries in a specific newspaper.
Any document can be downloaded to your computer or printed directly from the platform. At the moment it cannot be shared with other people, but it is a function that the company plans to include in the coming months.
