WE Seniors Genealogy Meeting – Wednesday, October 7, 2026
Topic: What Historical Newspapers Can Tell Us About Our Ancestors
Presenter: Jean-Yves Vanier-Verbeek
Today’s presentation was by Jean-Ives Vanier-Verbeek on the use of newspapers to research family history. Titled “What Newspapers Can Tell Us About Our Ancestors”, Jean-Ives demonstrated how newspapers can reveal a great deal of information on the personality and lives of our ancestors beyond what recorded information might provide in vital statistic or census records.
Jean-Ives introduced four principal websites that can be used to research for newspaper articles and information on our ancestors. Each is listed below with a brief description and their website link:
Peel’s Prairie Provinces Historical Newspapers (by the University of Alberta)
https://libraey.ualberta.ca/peel/newspapers
A historic newspaper collection features over 175 titles and range in date from 1870 to 2020. From this page, you can search for titles by language, province, or city. By clicking on the title you will be taken to the digitized issues where you can further search the full text and filter by year. You can also search the full text across all newspaper titles by going directly to the Newspapers collection on the Internet Archive. Free Access.
Newspapers.com (by Ancestry.com)
Newspapers.com is the largest online newspaper archive consisting of 1 billion+ pages of historical newspapers from 31,500+ newspapers from around the world. Newspapers provide a unique view of the past and can help us understand and connect with the people, events and attitudes of an earlier time.
At Newspapers.com it is easy and convenient to search or browse the collection to find news, notices of births, marriages and deaths, sports, comics and much more. The high quality digital images and powerful viewer provide the best look at these historical papers and make it easy to print, save and share what you find.
A six month access is US$74.90.
OldNews.com (by My Heritage)
OldNews.com is the best website for exploring historical newspapers from around the world. It is brought to you by MyHeritage, the leading global platform for discovering, preserving, and sharing family history.
OldNews.com allows you to dig into this treasure trove by researching a digital archive containing hundreds of millions of pages from historical newspapers from the U.S., Canada, the U.K., the Netherlands, Australia, and more.
Using optical character recognition (OCR) technology, newspaper pages on OldNews.com are transcribed for easy reading. When viewing a newspaper page, the name of the person you searched for will be highlighted. That way, you can clearly read what is written on the image and see where the information appears on the newspaper page.
MyHeritage has launched OldNews, a subscription-based platform offering access to historical newspapers from the 1800s and 1900s for $99 per year, with a 7-day free trial for newcomers.
The Ancestor Hunt
https://theancestorhunt.com/newspaper-research-links.html
The Ancestor Hunt, founded in 2008, is focused on helping genealogists and family history researchers of all skill levels to achieve their goals. In the Newspaper section it provides the latest news regarding newspaper research, tips and techniques and the Newspaper Research Academy.
Choose from Platinum, Gold, or Silver membership levels, each offering a unique mix of benefits to fit your research style and budget.
Within newspapers there are a wide variety of articles that will give us understanding of the lives and events in our ancestors’ lives. Everything from birth, baptism and marriage announcements, to social columns, criminal activities, sports and entertainment events, family reunions and celebrations, social groups, and a host of others. Jean-Ives handout is attached detailing these website links and the wide variety of articles and information that can be used to further research your family history.
These notes and the handout will appears on our website in the next few days. Access to the site is at https://weseniors.ca/whats_new/genealogy-drop-in-class/
Happy researching! Newspapers are another great source to use to learn about your family’s past. Beware though, this avenue can be time consuming.
UPCOMING MEETINGS:
Wednesday, November, 2026 | WE Seniors Boardroom
Topic: Catalogues Find-A-Grave
Presenter: Alison Glass