Canadian Newspapers for Genealogy

Photo by Isabel Piñeiro on Unsplash

I’ve found newspapers to be a valuable resource in the United States. While I’ve dabbled a bit with newspapers from other countries, let’s look at newspapers in Canada that can help us with our genealogy.

While you can find Canadian newspapers through paid sites such as Newspapers.com or Ancestry, there are a number of free digital newspapers that you can access. If you are fortunate enough to visit the locality of your ancestors, check out local resources such as historical societies or libraries to see if they have historical newspapers.
My Canadian ancestors settled in an area of Ontario in the early days and their particular township did not have a town! So, that can make it tricky to find a newspaper that might have news about them. Despite years of searching, I have not found my direct ancestors in the local papers because of the time period when they lived there. There was no newspaper and it was early days when people did not publish notices of deaths. Most were honest pioneer farmers so they quietly eked out a living. If you have someone who is more famous, you might find more information about them. I have not found any newspapers that included the local gossip about people visiting friends and relatives like I have in old North and South Dakota newspapers. It doesn’t mean that some papers didn’t include this information but I haven’t found it in the area of Ontario where I’ve been researching.
There are several sources that include details about Canadian Newspapers, including where to find them as well as availability. Here are a few.
Canada Newspapers • FamilySearch
Within this site, you can choose to look at a specific province. For example, here’s what is available for Ontario Newspapers.
https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Ontario_Newspapers
 
https://theancestorhunt.com/blog/free-online-canada-historical-newspaper-links/
https://news.google.com/newspapers
There are many available but you do need to know the name of the newspaper in which you are interested. You can try searching for key words but many newspapers include the town or village name.
 
https://www.cyndislist.com/canada/newspapers/
As always, Cyndi’s List provides great links for you to explore Canadian newspapers.
 
Even if you cannot find your specific family in the newspaper, you might find articles and information that helps provide context for your family story. Have fun exploring the newspapers!