Historical German American Newspapers Online

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(This page's most recent update is October 2026)

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​For those of you who have some German in your family tree, several German-American newspapers published over the last hundred or so years may help you find some information and stories about your ancestors.

Listed are only those that are available online. As always, there are tons more available via microfilm and in the original form via libraries and archives.

Please note that some are free and some require a subscription or a login from a university (or local) library. Some are indexed, and some are not. In the Free Collections, you may see some duplicates – this is because the newspaper is provided on multiple online sites, so you may wish to search or browse each of the duplicates.

German Language Historical Newspapers in the U.S.

Free Collections:

Note: in some cases, the city is provided and in others, it isn’t – the same is true of the date range of the title in the online collection.  Also, many states are not represented – this may be because 1) there are no German newspapers in that state; 2) they have not been digitized, or 3) this author has not found the link.

Alabama 

Arkansas

California

Colorado

District of Columbia 

Delaware

Idaho

Iowa

Illinois

Indiana

Kansas

Kentucky

Louisiana

Maryland

Michigan

Minnesota

Missouri

Nebraska

North Carolina

North Dakota

New York

Ohio

Oklahoma

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

South Dakota

Tennessee

Texas

Virginia

West Virginia

Wisconsin

    Wyoming

    ​Library Access Only:

    Readex/NewsBank Titles

    From their Ethnic American Newspapers from the Balch Collection, 1799-1971, there are 53 German American newspapers available. Check with your nearby library to see if they have a subscription for this collection.  Clicking on the link will provide you with a list of titles.  Please understand that all of these titles listed are not German.  There are French, Irish, and other ethnic groups contained in this collection.

    Subscription Sites:

    Genealogy Bank has over 30 German language titles available on their site:

    GenealogyBank German American Newspapers

    A terrific resource for German-language newspapers throughout the world (including the U.S.) is German-Language Newspaper Access in North America.  It has a database, sorted by city, that identifies German-language titles and whether they are available on paper, microfilm, or online.

    Good Luck and Happy Hunting!

    9 replies on “Historical German American Newspapers Online”

    I don’t see the Syracuse Union on your list. It’s available via http://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/. Here’s a link directly to the paper:
    http://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn83031907/

    Janeen, that’s because I didn’t know it was a German language paper. Now I do, so I can add it on my next update. Thanks.

    Just a friendly reminder, I still don’t see it.

    Janeen,
    Like I said in my previous comment, it will be in the next update. My process is that any new titles that I become aware of after I have posted the latest list, are captured and will be included in the Next Update, which is likely in about 6 months or so for the Ethnic newspapers.

    Deutsche Beitung fur Texas should be Deutsche Zeitung für Texas. It’s hard to read that old Fraktur type but that’s a Z.

    I knew that of course. Good catch.

    Where the links to it seems to be dead 🙁
    Thanks for this awesome list!

    All news very good. Continue i read

    There is also Ernest Thode’s book, HISTORICAL GERMAN NEWSPAPERS ONLINE. 2ND EDITION, which emphasizes foreign papers online.
    Joe Garonzik

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