The Value of Google's Newspaper Archive

Washington Reporter (Washington, PA),
April 26, 1845

The Google newspaper archive is no longer adding newspapers, but it's still a very valuable resource. For example, it has historical publications that are useful to my genealogy research such as the Washington Reporter (Washington, Pennsylvania), which goes back to 1845. GenealogyBank has the same newspaper, but I don't have a subscription to that site. I took a look at Chronicling America, Newspapers.com, and NewspaperArchive, and I didn't see this title in their lists of newspapers offered. So if there's a particular newspaper that could help with your research, don't forget to check out Google's list.

Searching the Google newspaper archive may not be as easy or effective as the subscription newspaper sites, but Google is free and may be the only way to access some publications or issues online. I found some great tidbits about ancestors who lived in the Mt. Washington section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, by browsing issues of The Mt. Washington News in the Google newspaper archive. It's a publication that the subscription sites don't have, so I was thrilled to have access to it for free.

So once you've determined which newspaper(s) may help with your genealogy research, don't forget to check Google's newspaper list to see if the publication is there. I still use this resource often!