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At The Archive this week we are delighted to announce that we have hit another milestone, as we are now at over 97 million pages all available to search, as we embrace spooky season and find out how to throw a 1950s style Halloween party. That’s not all, we’ve added another 256,448 brand new pages to our collection, with five brand new titles and updates to seven of our existing titles from across the UK.And so, read on to discover more…

As it’s the height of spooky season we’re exploring the history of Halloween at The Archive, with the help of the 93,381 brand new pages that we have added to our collection over the last seven days. Meanwhile, we’re delighted to welcome one brand new newspaper title to The Archive, which is the Middlesex & Surrey Gazette, whilst we have made exciting updates to some of our existing titles from across Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.So read on to discover more…

At The Archive we are delighted to welcome guest blogs from our users, which highlight a wealth of different research interests. This month, we are excited to feature a blog on researching queer history by Staffordshire researcher Rebecca Morris-Quinn.My name is Rebecca, I am a queer woman living in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. I’ve been interested in genealogy and history for many years, since I found out that I share a birthday with a great-great aunt, Olive (albeit over 100 years ago).…

Our newspaper Archive contains many thousands of obituaries and death notices, which can help you unlock fascinating information and stories about your family history. In this special blog, we present your guide to obituaries on The Archive: how to search them, where to find them, and how to make the most of them for your family history research. But first, what is an obituary?Register now and explore the ArchiveWhat Is An Obituary?An obituary, according to the Cambridge…

This week at The Archive we have been busy adding an incredible 167,444 brand new pages to our collection, with nineteen new titles added in all. And this week’s new titles have an especially Scottish theme, with a lucky thirteen new titles added from Scotland alone over the past seven days.Meanwhile, we have added six historic London titles, digitised as part of the British Library’s Heritage Made Digital programme, and updated fifteen of our existing newspaper titles, including pages from…

Nowadays, we tend to think of Halloween as a thoroughly modern phenomenon, an American Hallmark holiday. But using newspapers from the Victorian era, accessed through The Archive, we will discover in this blog how Halloween is a thoroughly ancient phenomenon.We will look at the ancient origins of the October festival, and explore its traditions, some of which have lasted through to this day, like bobbing for apples, and others that have fallen by the wayside, for example the day’s…

With spooky season now upon us, we thought we’d scour the pages of The Archive to find some of the most spine-chilling ghost stories ever published in our newspapers.So settle in and prepare to be scared by tales of ghostly armies, inexplicable apparitions and portents from the afterlife, all of which have been featured in the pages of the newspapers to be found on The Archive.Want to learn more? Register now and explore The Archive1. An Army of…

The British Newspaper Archive, in partnership with the British Library, has been bringing history to life for over a decade through the pages of its extensive collection. We are now delighted to announce that the British Library will be extending this long-term partnership, and together we will continue to digitise more and more historic newspaper titles from across the United Kingdom and beyond.First launched in 2011, the British Newspaper Archive, working with the British Library, has so far digitised over 42…

This week we have added 103,570 new pages to The Archive, with an impressive 6 brand new titles joining our collection. In addition to these new titles, we have updates to 9 of our existing publications. In all, our new pages this week cover 120 years of history, and span the towns, cities and countryside of England, Scotland and Wales.This week sees a brand new addition to our Leicestershire newspapers. The Ashby-de-la-Zouch Gazette covers the area around the market town, and was a…

Using newspapers for your Scottish genealogy researchDo you find yourself daunted at the prospect of researching your Scottish ancestors? Keep the heid! There exists a fantastic array of records that can get you further along in your family history research. The main problem, however, is access. Much of what exists has not been ditigised, and for those that have been, many are not indexed. It is overwhelming figuring out where to search and what records, if they were created,…