Discover Stories of Your Spanish Ancestors: Names and Stories from Newspapers on OldNews.com
We’re pleased to announce the release of a new historical record collection on MyHeritage: Spain, Names & Stories in Newspapers. This collection includes 285 million structured records extracted from Spanish newspapers. The records were created using advanced AI technology developed in-house by MyHeritage.
This marks our first Names & Stories collection in Spanish, bringing the total number of records extracted from newspapers in 2025 to over 6 billion records.
Search Spain, Names & Stories in Newspapers
Historical newspapers offer rich details for family history that official records often lack. They include stories of everyday life, public recognition, local news, and other details that add color and context to what you know about your ancestors’ lives. With the Names & Stories collections, these stories are searchable and also matched to your family tree. You can uncover surprising new details, even about relatives you didn’t think to search for.
Records in this collection typically include full names and identified relationships, relevant locations, occupations, and associated institutions, as well as the newspaper title, publication date, and place. They provide a snippet of text from the newspaper, a short article summary generated by AI, and the full scanned text (OCR) of the article. In addition, each record includes a link to view the original scanned newspaper page on OldNews.com.
Examples
Here are a few sample records from the Spain, Names & Stories in Newspapers collection.
This article appeared in the crime and legal affairs section of La Correspondencia de España on December 12, 1923, and documents the attempted break-in reported by Fernando Fernández González.
Fernando Fernández González was the owner of a lottery and tobacco shop located at Plaza de Segovia Nueva 1 in Madrid, Spain. On December 12, 1923, La Correspondencia de España reported that he had filed a complaint following an attempted break-in at his business. The intruder had tried to gain access through the mezzanine floor of the building above the shop, where construction was underway for a future medical clinic. Early that morning, a nearby tavern owner noticed the entrance to the building was ajar and alerted Fernández González. Upon inspection, he discovered that the lock had been broken and two beams in the floor — directly above his shop — had been lifted. Police investigations led to the arrest of a suspect found in the area, reportedly seen cleaning plaster off his clothing.
Another example from the new collection, found in the El Noroeste publication dated December 21, 1906, tells the story of Jesús Alonso López, a stoker aboard the fishing steamship Blanca Barreras, based in Vigo.
Jesús tragically died in a boiler explosion while the ship was docked in the bay of A Coruña. The accident occurred in December 1923, when he was approximately 36 years old. Originally from Vigo, he was living on Santa Lucía Street in A Coruña at the time.
According to the report, Jesús and the ship’s engineer were in the engine room building pressure in the boiler in preparation for departure when the explosion happened in the early hours of the morning. Both men were killed instantly, while two other crew members survived. The article provides key details about Jesús’s occupation, residence, age, cause of death, and the events leading up to the tragedy — all now preserved in Spain, Names & Stories in Newspapers from OldNews.com.
The technology behind the collection
In 2024, MyHeritage developed specialized AI to extract structured records from newspaper pages published on OldNews.com. These Names & Stories collections identify names and associate them with rich details such as relationships, occupations, events, locations, and more.
This technology makes newspapers far more searchable and greatly improves how newspaper articles are matched to family trees, making them more useful for genealogical research.
We began publishing Names & Stories collections in December 2024, starting with English-language newspapers. Since then, we’ve expanded to French, and now Spanish. Additional languages are planned for the near future.
Accessing the new collection
You can search the Spain, Names & Stories in Newspapers collection for free on MyHeritage. Viewing full record details requires a Data, Complete, or Omni subscription.
If you have a family tree on MyHeritage, you’ll begin receiving automatic Record Matches to articles in this collection that mention people in your tree — helping you discover stories and details without needing to search manually.
Conclusion
This collection reflects our ongoing work to make family history research richer, more accessible, and more global. It’s a step forward in expanding our newspaper content into Spanish and bringing new discoveries within reach for anyone exploring their roots in Spain.
Ready to explore the stories of your Spanish ancestors?
Search the Spain, Names & Stories in Newspapers collection now
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