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Duration 26:12

Digitised newspapers as sources for family history

This talk aims to give listeners a demonstration of the recently launched British Newspapers Archive (BNA). This database has over 200 UK newspapers, published from 1700-1950, and over 3 million pages – growing daily. Newspapers are frequently the only place where information about local people and events are published, so they are an important resource for the family historian. The talk gives practical examples from these newspapers. It also briefly describes some non-UK older digitised newspaper databases.

Ed King has worked for the British Library since 1975. He is currently head of Newspaper Collections at the library. Since 2004, he has been involved with projects to digitise older newspapers in the library’s collections. He has been working with many colleagues to realise the British Newspaper Archive, launched late in 2011.