I have been looking for articles / photographs of a specific subject for close to 2 years. I had exhausted youtube and google, I had purchased 2 photographs off ebay but could never get the right picture I needed. I started thinking about period newspapers and advertisements, but being outside the UK made it hard, I signed up for the free trial and liked what I found but the 3 articles where not enough, with a months subscription and 5 more minutes I quickly found exactly what I was looking for, and I'm guessing one of the only photographs of what I wanted. I could download it as a high quality PDF too. The search using AI to read PDF's for keywords made the search really easy, I really cannot recommend it enough if you're looking for something.

Was looking for archive of a local paper, mid 1960's. Tried a search - only came up with 1950, so bought a subscription and did a search and presto - 1950 is all they have!! I was under the impression that they had archives post 1950, but no. They are not very clear about what editions they possess. Total wast of money. Bin.

Only has up to 1976 and fails to point that out, i had this a few days and was refused very arrogantly a refund due to the fact id made 50 searches, of course i had as i was searching! Anything you search with a "name" appears with the name in question blotted out, maybe to stop you printing it off? All photos are very blurry. Archive is very sparce with obvious events missing. Complete waste of time and money, now they have stopped answering my refund requests, so if someone from your company sees this CAN I HAVE MY MONEY BACK?

I bought my father a subscription but when the search results were limited and useless he raised a query with them and they explained that their current archive is limited to local papers only because of copyright issues. They refused to give a refund even though it's only a few days since he activated the fight subscription because "some pages" had been looked at. When I spoke with them they were unable to substantiate the claims made on their own website. They have refused to convert the annual subscription into a week or month subscription or refund anything at all even though the product you actually get is not fit for purpose. They explained that they are working on a ten-year plan to digitize ancient newspapers but do not know if or when the copyright issues will ever be resolved regarding the more recent press.

Very good newspaper archive. Highly recommended. It really keeps you informed and even teaches you things you never knew before.

I highly recommend this british newspaper archive.They have so many great information and will keep you up to date with current event and past events. The prices are extremely reasonable as well.

The British Newspaper Archive is terrific and fabulous, I found my ancestors using and searching for death notices. I was very successful and happy with the service. I highly recommend this to anyone with ancestors in the UK. Sincerely, Allegheny Ancestry & Genealogy Trails

clunky interface, poor search tools and excessive cost -

Checking for information on the British Newspaper Archive of old newspapers is now part of my historical research. No matter what subject I am researching, people, places, events, or a particular subject, I will always find something that adds to my knowledge. In the past couple of days I have followed through a court case and tracked whaling ships coming into Whitby, followed the fortunes of particular race horses and garnered lots of family information from Births Marriages and Deaths. I always want my results to appears in chronological order, so have to keep remembering every time I do a new search to go to the bottom of the apge and select that preference. The crazy scrabbled letters of the text in the snippets is sometimes frustrating, and the page that opens up is not always the right page, sometimes I have to go forwards or backwards a page or two, but on the whole, this is now an essential part of my tool kit. And a tip ? replace the letter that is between r and t [evidently this letter is banned by your system???] with the letter F (lower case) and you will be amazed how many more results you get, looking for a Bishop ? try Bifhop.

I have subscribed to this fantastic archive virtually since it went on-line and have found a great deal of minutiae about my family history. It may be a court hearing, bankruptcy, house fire or that my grandmother won a newspaper competition for art but it all paints a picture of our ancestors and their lives. So far I have downloaded and noted around 400 articles, advertisements and family notices. It has allowed me to 'put some flesh' on the bare names on my database and make the people come alive. Without it, my family history research would have just become a list of names. Now it makes so much more sense. A great resource.

To be able to access such a wealth of British newspapers without even having to leave the comfort of your office is worth every penny of the subscription fee! The scope of the local papers is great though those looking for those important national tabloids and broadsheets will be disappointed - only The Daily Mirror out of the 'big hitters' so far. Navigating the site is straightforward if a little clunky and basic - it would be really useful to have some more sophisticated features in the search and My Research section in order to view and order saved material more usefully (e.g being able to see without clicking on article if it has already been saved to collection; option to view saved entries by date of publication). Overall however, it's a fantastic beginning to digitalising and sharing archives and with further development it has the potential to become an excellent, must have resource for amateur and professional historians.

I have been coming to London for the past 1+ years doing research on the arrival and departure of American Sailing Packets during the period 1818 - 1840 sailing between New York and Liverpool and New York and London. I have enjoyed the trips to Coledale but now really the ability to read the Liverpool Mercury on my computer here in the states is making my continued research faster and more enjoyable. The first research has been published and my efforts mow are to increase the data base out to 1848 and adding the sailings from New York - La Harve France. Being on line I can also research additional material as I receive them and not have to wait until I come to London. I still make my trips to London even though the material is now on line. Keep up the good work and I look forward to the continued additions to the material I can search on my computer.

I have found the British Newspaper Archives absolutely invaluable for three main reasons. First and most importantly is that they help bring to life long dead relatives, with newspaper articles about what they got up to in their everyday lives, in a way that no other medium could, for so many people. Secondly, dates of births, baptisms, marriages, deaths and burials can often be found when other methods have failed, particularly pre-1838, when official birth, marriage and death records first began. Thirdly, I have found family relationships easier to untangle, through for example, who attended a wedding or a funeral, and even articles on who attended a local club meeting. My only criticism is that when looking at the contents of the last item found in the list you are given (i.e. the one at the bottom of the list) when clicking on 'back to results' it takes you to the top of the list to start again. A little annoying but I get around this by clicking on the back button on my browser. All in all 10 out of 10 from my perspective!

I started off with a specific area of interest (old Edinburgh Taverns. Inns and Pubs) and fairly easily and quickly found a substantial amount of great and useful information. It did take me longer than it should have because I was distracted by fascinating articles outwith my area of interest. Political reports and commentary as well as war coverage were prominent and very interesting. Another distraction were the adverts for theatres, cure-all medicines, clothes, job vacancies, property sales and the court reports. The court reports reveal the brutality of so called justice in the 18th and 19th centuries. The one report that sticks out in my memory concerned 2 boys aged 9 or 10 who were convicted of stealing silk handkerchiefs and were sentenced to be deported to Australia! It wasn't their first offence nevertheless I think it was a very cruel punishment. Money well spent in my opinion.

I have been using the British Newspaper Archive since it first became available and am impressed by the large amount of content in the database. However, the badly named 'Exact' search mechanism lets this system down completely. I use the database to search for the first usages of English phrases, like, for example 'take a horse to water'. Without going into details the search methods provided make this a tedious task, not dissimilar to the scanning of microfiches we had to do in the old days. Search is a pretty basic IT function and Google had this cracked 15 years ago. To paraphrase another expression (which I wouldn't care to use this system to search for), 'the database was spoiled for a ha'porth of tar'. Gary Martin

There's no doubt that the British Newspaper Archive site has transformed newspaper research in the UK: the ability to search using different criteria, dates and titles makes it a powerful tool. My problem with it is that having found an entry, it's painfully difficult to manage. Unlike other similar sites, one can't cut and paste from the page, only bookmark a whole page. And then, just try finding your item again! The blue squares that were so helpful in the first search have all disappeared, the white box is frequently in the wrong place, and I've found it almost impossible to find again what it was I bookmarked, and unless I'm missing something I can't search within a page that I've bookmarked. Currently there's some sort of bug that makes the bookmarks tab entries appear in black against dark blue - almost impossible to read - and there's no "back to category" button. This is so frustrating, and other sites such as newspapers.com make this so much easier. I'd like to give it more stars, but really three is as good as it gets.

The BNA has done an excellent and wonderful job in transferring countless pages of information for us to access with a few simple requests. Every time I visit I find something new. A new journey through the pages. I raise a glass Hugh

Time consuming, smaller year groups would be more beneficial,especially for those who know the years they need to search, and more specific areas would possibly be a benefit. Papers of more recent times would be very useful. Difficult to decide what to type for your search as all sorts of others items of similar spelling also appear, you can spend days reading the snippets for just one year to find nothing. If and when you do find an article that's great, saved lots of time in archive offices on noisy machines just searching endlessly, and without leaving the house. With luck you can find items you wouldn't have found in the archives anyway though because you probably didn't know they were in the paper for you to look for in the first place, you can find the unexpected. The monthly subscription makes much more sense than the 2 day one because you have to sit glued for 2 days to get your money's worth, I don't have time for that and have wasted money. I have found some articles difficult to enlarge to print for my files though, I also lose track of my searches as I start reading other news items of the time, fascinating insights into the past.