If you think your ancestors made local headlines, follow Judith Batchelor’sinstructions to…
Search newspapers on Findmypast
Local newspapers are full of priceless information and colourful stories that help you discover more about your ancestors. One of the best online collections is at Findmypast (www. snipca.com/48754), where subscribers can search 2,335 newspaper titles (covering British and Irish publications) and more than 73 million pages. It has recently improved its search feature to make it easier to find what you’re looking for. We’ll explain what you can now do.
Discover which articles are free to access
Start with a broad search by typing a name and keyword (such as an event, place or company). You can search by multiple names or keywords if you separate them using commas. The results list articles in order of relevance, with publication details on the right. Click the summary to read the full article, where you can zoom in, download and print.
Use the dropdown menus at the top to narrow your search to specific newspapers, as well as location of publication and between which dates. If you’re not a Findmypast subscriber, click ‘Article access’, then ‘Free to view’ ( 1in our screenshot left) and you’ll see which articles you can open without having to subscribe 2 . Findmypast says there are 3.8 million free articles, and many more will be added in time.
When you open a newspaper page, you can save the part of it that’s relevant. Click the Crop Rectangle icon ( 1in our screenshot above right) to create a highlighted area to clip. Now hold and drag this to stretch over the article 2 . When done, click the Clip button 3to save it. You can then download, share or print it.
When viewing a newspaper you can change how it appears by clicking the top-right Image Tools icon (looks like three sliders). This lets you alter brightness, contrast and saturation, and invert colours so white text appears on a black background. Note, however, that none of these effects are kept when you clip part of the page.
Use keywords and phrases to narrow your results
For more narrow results, click Advanced Search either on the home page or at the top of the results page. You can now exclude keywords, and prioriti
