Search for stories in our extensive newspaper collections
Explore millions of digitised pages of newspapers and other publications from our British and Irish collections, dating as far back as the 1700s.
The storage void of the new British Library National Newspaper Building at Boston Spa in West Yorkshire. Photo © Kippa Matthews
Search tips and tricks
Findmypast's historical newspaper archive collection is a potential goldmine of information on your ancestors. Here's how to make the most of it.
Search for multiple names
Search for more than one name to find articles that mention both people – just separate the names with a comma:
For example:
Lloyd George, Bonar Law
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Narrow your results with filters
Start your search with a name or keyword, then use the filters to narrow down your results by date, location, and title.
You can add and remove filters until you find what you're looking for.
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Harness the power of phrase searching
Search for phrases exactly as they appear and in the specified order by using quotation marks around terms.
For example:
"Sutton Coldfield rail crash"
"Sutton Coldfield" "rail crash"
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Find your family’s colourful history in black and white
Behind every headline there’s a family. Including yours. Enrich your family history with stories, moments and experiences you’ll only discover in old newspapers.
Read all about it with the largest collection of British and Irish newspapers online at Findmypast.
Without Findmypast’s newspapers, I would have never discovered that my 3 x great-grandfather was one of Britain’s first certified teachers. It’s gems like this that you don’t get in other records