I believe that newspapers are probably one of the most valuable, but underutilized sources for local and family history. Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay, the early 19th Century British poet, historian and Whig politician once stated 'that the only true history of a country is found in its newspapers'. Although I have some reservations about late 20th and 21st Century newspapers, I tend to agree with him about 19th and early 20th Century newspapers.

When you consider the first newspaper began in Sydney just fifteen years after the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, just imagine how much history of Australian families must be buried in Australian newspapers. Many family historians assume that because their ancestors were 'ordinary people' of the lower classes and would not have been written up in newspapers. This I assure you is not the case.