There are three free sources of digitized newspapers available to North Carolina/Chatham County researchers.  You can access these collections from your home computer.

Historic North Carolina Digital Newspaper Collection at NC LIVE

The “Historic North Carolina Digital Newspaper Collection” is a fantastic, searchable resource for North Carolina (and Chatham County) researchers. Some 3.5 million pages of digitized North Carolina newspapers published in 1922 and earlier are available through NC LIVE.  Access to the collection via NC LIVE is free to library card holders at NC LIVE member libraries—including all three Chatham County Public Libraries.

You can access the collection from your home computer via this link:

Historic Newspaper Collection at NC LIVE

Choose your library from the list-- Chatham County Public Libraries for most Chatham residents, but many other libraries are members. Then enter your library card number and pin.

Digitized Issues of The Chatham Record and The Chatham News via Newspapers.com

Chatham County Libraries also offers access to digitized issues of The Chatham Record from 1878 to 2018  and The Chatham News from 1988 to 2018 through Newspapers.com. (Issues of The Chatham Record from 1878 to 1904 are also available on the DigitalNC site. See link below.)

To access this resource, use the link below and enter your library card number (or Chatham County Schools student number) and pin.

Chatham Record / Chatham News

Need help?

 If you need help with either of the above resources, contact Chatham County Public Libraries: 919-545-8086

Historic North Carolina Newspaper Collection at DigitalNC

Another free resource for searching digitized North Carolina newspapers is DigitalNC. Newspapers on DigitalNC date from the earliest known published newspaper in the state up through the present. They are constantly adding new content. As of December 2025, the collection included more than 622,000 issues from 1,641 North Carolina titles (including ten titles from Chatham County). Use the link below to access the DigitalNC newspaper database.

DigitalNC Newspaper Database