Wales Newspapers

Online Resources

 * 1804-1919 Welsh Newspapers 15 million Welsh newspaper articles from the National Library of Wales
 * 1800-1900 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index & images
 * 1800s-Current UK and Ireland, Newspapers.com Obituary Index, 1800s-current at Ancestry - index and images ($)
 * 1800-1900 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index & images
 * 1847-1848 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index & images
 * 1804-1881 Cambrian Index Online Most coverage is for the former county of West Glamorgan
 * UK and Ireland, Newspapers.com Marriage Index, 1800s-current at Ancestry - index and images ($)
 * Online Newsagent
 * Welsh Journals provides access to journals relating to Wales published between 1735-2007. Titles range from academic and scientific publications to literary and popular magazines.

Historical Background
English border towns began publishing newspapers in the 1690s. Early English newspapers, such as Berrow’s Worcester Journal (beginning in 1710) and the Gloucester Journal (1730), have Welsh items. The first successful Welsh newspaper, The Cambrian, began publication at Swansea in 1804 and continues today as the Herald of Wales. It was followed by the North Wales Gazette 1808 in Bangor and the Carmarthen Journal in 1810. The first newspaper published in the Welsh language was Seren Gomer, which was published in 1814 at Swansea.

Because of a tax on printed paper, local newspapers did not flourish until the tax was lowered in 1836. Hundreds of newspapers started in 1855 when the tax was abolished. Useful information found in local nineteenth-century newspapers includes:


 * Birth announcements (usually the father’s name only).
 * Death announcements.
 * Reports of court cases (often in detail).
 * Gun licenses granted (at quarters sessions).
 * Details of inquests, divorces, funerals, and marriages.
 * Local events.

Welsh newspapers are at many repositories and libraries. Visit the Newsplan Cymru website for details. For a bibliography of repository holdings, see the following publication:


 * Jones, Beti. Newsplan: Report of the Newsplan Project in Wales ; Adroddiad ar gynllun Newsplan yng Nghymru. London, England: British Library, 1994. (FS Library book 942.9 B33j.) This work is an inventory of the newspapers held in various archives and libraries in Wales.

The most complete collection is at the National Library of Wales which includes 15 million articles available for free - Welsh Newspapers

A bibliography that lists holdings by town of publication is:


 * Catalogue of the British Newspaper Library. 8 vols. London, England: British Museum Publications, 1975. (Family History Library .) This work is an inventory of the newspapers held at the Newspaper Library in London, arranged by the locality.

The Family History Library has no Welsh newspapers. It does, however, have some abstracts and transcriptions. The library also has the Gloucester Journal from 1731 to 1802, which contains some references to Wales. For library holdings, look in the Locality Search of the FamilySearch Catalog under:


 * WALES - NEWSPAPERS


 * WALES, [COUNTY] - NEWSPAPERS

You may also gain access to some newspapers through the GenUKI website.

Humphreys, R.H. Coroners Courts and Reports. Author gives samples of Coroners report. It is useful in determining date and place of death. Reports are kept at the Public Record Office in London. Many of the Coroners Reports are in the local Newspapers, so check there as well. Sometimes they can be up to 6 months after the event happened. Article in Hel Achau, #3, Spring, 1981, pages 11-13, Family History Library Ref. 942.93 D25h.