Papers Past
While investigating clues on the Nicholson side of my family and the possible connection to New Zealand, I ended up googling ‘New Zealand newspapers’ and happened across this gem of a website.
Much like the National Library of Australia’s website, Papers Past is run by the National Library of New Zealand and allows users to search through many New Zealand newspapers and periodicals covering the period 1839 to 1945.
Users can choose to either browse through individual newspapers or to search for a particular phrase or word. These search results can be further refined by clicking ‘more search options’ and applying either the newspaper, date or content type filters. The date filter is particularly handy if you happen to know the period of time your keyword relates to.
Papers Past is already on its way to becoming one of my favourite websites (I simply cannot resist historic newspapers!) and I know that should the New Zealand connection be confirmed I’ll be visiting even more. Whether you have ancestors who hailed from New Zealand or are simply interested in their historic newspapers I suggest you check out this site. Perhaps you’ll get lucky and find a clue!
Happy searching!
Finding Family 
I have come across your entry on papers past. Have not gone any further but hoping that your entry can help me search for Great Great Grandparents who are a real mystery to the whole family regards maureen
Hi Maureen,
Thanks for reading and leaving a comment. I hope Papers Past can help you too. The website is: http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast. Good luck! 🙂