Newspaper research is one of the most important parts of a solid genealogy search plan. After you’ve found ancestors in the census and vital records, your next step is often the search for newspaper announcements. Sure, you can stop by many local libraries and park yourself in front of a microfilm machine for a couple of hours, hoping to find a mention of an ancestor or two, but there’s a better way.

With more and more newspaper archive pages going online everyday, there are a number of options available for searching. Currently, no online database has every paper archives from every state, but between the few database websites that are out there, just about anyone can expect to find something.

One of the newest newspaper archive websites is SmallTownPapers.com. In February 2007, it announced the sharing of more than one million unique, historical newspaper pages with the fast-growing genealogy database website WorldVitalRecords.com. The announcement stated that “this marks the first time the newspapers, from small towns across the country, have been online accessible and searchable, which will dramatically enhance one’s ability to conduct online historical research.”

That statement is not exactly true, NewspsperArchive.com has been microfilming newspapers from big cities and small towns for a number of years now, and there are other newspaper archive websites on the internet, some of them free, while most charge a subscription fee. In England, the TimesDigitalArchive has been available for a while as well, and there are others in the U. S. and abroad.

“We selected World Vital Records to distribute our collection of small-town newspapers because of their commitment to the millions of people who want to research their family history,” said Paul Jeffko, president and founder of SmallTownPapers, Inc. “World Vital Records is delivering on their mission to help people discover their ancestors with an incredible collection of exclusive materials, including SmallTownPapers.”

America has seen a surge in the demand for online genealogy resources. Market Strategies, Inc. found in 2005 that 73% of Americans are interested in discovering their family history. Last year, Pew Internet and American Life Project found that over 35 million Americans are interested in online genealogy research.

SmallTownPapers works with hundreds of small market newspaper publishers to create this unique, searchable database rich in historical information needed by genealogists including births, marriages, obituaries and articles about family members. To date, the company has scanned more than two million of its more than 20 million page archive, which will be available online as the digital images are created.