Record type

Historic newspapers — where to find them free

Obituaries, marriage and birth notices, local news and legal notices. Often the only record of a death date or a maiden name before civil registration.

Public archives Provara searches for historic newspapers

live Chronicling America (Library of Congress)

Library of Congress · US

Historic US newspapers 1690s–1963 with OCR text: obituaries, notices, local news

Licence: Public domain (US newspaper pages); LoC metadata CC0 · terms read 2026-09-06

live DigitalNZ / Papers Past (New Zealand)

National Library of New Zealand · NZ

Papers Past newspapers 1839–1980s (full text), plus NZ library, museum and archive collections

Licence: Developer terms permit commercial use of metadata with link-back; per-record usage flags honoured · terms read 2026-09-06

not yet connected Trove (National Library of Australia)

National Library of Australia · AU

Australian newspapers and GLAM collections

Licence: UNCONFIRMED for paid use · terms read 2026-09-06

How to ask

In Provara, ask Provara for an obituary or a wedding notice by name, place and approximate year. With web search on, it searches all 2 live archives above in one call, reads the best hits, and proposes only what the record it read supports — with the record beside the claim.

Start free

No card needed. Build and source your tree free; search these archives free; the assistant's research runs on tokens.

Every licence on these pages was read from the archive's own terms on the date shown. Provara proposes only what a record it has read supports, shows the record beside the claim, and marks anything unsourced as a hypothesis. Nothing on this page states a fact about any person.