Was one of your ancestors involved in a news item?

Did one of your ancestors make headlines, for better or worse? Discover it with these tips.

Crime news in historical press

Press, daily or not, has existed since the 17th century and became widespread at the end of the 19th century with the emergence of local press. At the time, it was one of the most important sources of local information.

In journalistic jargon, crime news refers to all events that don't fit into existing categories. Generally and at the time, crime news mostly deals with dramatic events (crimes, accidents, thefts...) and spectacular ones, but not only. We also talk about the “dog-squashing column”.

Crime news is interesting in genealogy as it is often very detailed. Journalists provide details about the people involved, locations, circumstances, and consequences of the event. Moreover, if one of your ancestors was the subject of a crime news report because they were the author, you might have “the chance” to read a physical description of them.

🚨 Did you know?
Between the 1860s and 1950s, crime news was sung by hawkers (peddlers) on the street. They told the latest events and crimes from nearby villages, also delivering a moral message.

Finding crime news in digitized historical press

There are several online sites, specialized or not in historical press, where you can conduct your genealogical research:

• On departmental archive websites: many departmental archive centers have realized the interest in digitizing and putting online old local press. By searching on their sites, you might be lucky enough to access them from home.

• Historical local press : a portal of the National Library of France that provides you with local newspapers published in France up to 1944. These periodicals are also available on Gallica.

• Retronews : this is THE site dedicated to digitized historical press from 1631 to 1950. Note that you will need a subscription to access some content.

• Le gazetier universel et le gazetier révolutionnaire : carry out your research among more than 800 titles of periodicals from the 17th and 18th centuries online, for free.

🚨 Good to know: 
You can also find “crime news” outside the press. Indeed, it often happened that a priest shared a curious event from the village in the archives. These are called “unusual acts”. Although they were less detailed at the time than journalists' crime news, you can still learn surprising things!

Several sites of unusual acts and mentions exist: Geneacteinsolites, Histoire-généalogie, To my Ancestors, Feuilles d’ardoise et Geneadom.

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