Follow Your Family Through America's History

Climb beyond the names and dates on your family tree to the recorded details of their daily lives. Find the facts in four centuries of fragile, rare newspapers, books and documents.

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examples: 1804 - 1849 | June 1804 - August 1849

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Historical Collections

Historical Newspapers (1690 - 1980)

Quickly find names and keywords in over 125 million articles, obituaries, marriage notices, birth announcements and other items published in more than 500,000 issues of over 2,500 historical U.S. newspapers. New content added monthly! view title list

Historical Books (1801 - 1900)

A unique source that provides you with complete text of more than 11,700 books, pamphlets and printed items including: genealogies, biographies, funeral sermons, local histories, cards, charts and more - all published in the U.S. prior to 1900. view title list

Historical Documents (1789 - 1980)

Find military records, casualty lists, Revolutionary and Civil War pension requests, widow's claims, orphan petitions, land grants and much more including all of the American State Papers (1789-1838) and all genealogical content carefully selected from the U.S. Serial Set (1817-1980). More than 151,000 reports, lists and documents. Now digitizing July 1952. New content added monthly! view title list

Modern Collections

America's Obituaries (1977 to current)

Obituaries contain helpful information such as names, dates, places of birth, death, marriage and family information. Over 28 million obituaries make this the most complete collection from the 20th and 21st centuries - includes over 1,100 U.S. newspapers. New content added daily! view title list

FREE! Social Security Death Index (1937 to current)

Search over 82 million death records and get genealogical information crucial to your family research. New content added weekly! Most comprehensive SSDI site online!

New content added for 87 titles from 25 states this month!

• Arkansas Gazette (Little Rock, AR) 1/8/1820 to 2/22/1874
• Gazette-Telegraph (Colorado Springs, CO) 2/21/1903 to 3/22/1849
• Baltimore American (Baltimore, MD) 1/1/1905 to 2/29/1912
• Kansas City Times (Kansas City, MO) 8/10/1808 to 9/6/1821
• Galveston News (Galveston, TX) 1/01/1877 to 12/13/1883
• And much more! View entire list