AseeksB  /  The Personals Archive
Published by AseeksB

The Personals Archive

147 personal ads from American, Australian, British, and Canadian newspapers, 1800 to 1954, transcribed from the original pages or, for the oldest, a published collection. Each comes with its source, a plain-English reading, and who it was written for.

For as long as there have been newspapers, people have used them to say what they want. The ads collected here come from American, Australian, British, and Canadian newspapers that are now in the public domain, most from the decades when a personal ad had to do everything in a few lines: describe the writer, state the wish, and name the reader it was meant for. Every transcription links to its source: the original page at the Library of Congress, at the California Digital Newspaper Collection, at the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection, at Trove, the National Library of Australia’s newspaper archive, or at Canadiana, or, for the oldest London notices, the 1881 collection of the Times personal column they were reprinted in. Every ad is dated and citable.

New to old personals? Start with The History of Personal Ads, a short guide to where these ads ran, four forms of notice that recur throughout the archive, and how the column changed.

A note on the capital letters. The transcriptions keep each ad exactly as it was printed, including its capitals. Newspapers set the first line of every classified ad in capital letters to make it stand out, then switched to lowercase wherever that line ended. That is why an ad can begin A YOUNG LADY OF MEANS WILL BE and continue in lowercase, and why the capitals sometimes stop in the middle of a word, as in AS REquested. It is how the ads appeared in the paper, not an error in the transcription.

Looking for what the shorthand means? The Personals Dictionary explains the language of the form, from nineteenth-century phrases to modern abbreviations. For the form’s life in fiction, from Sherlock Holmes to opera, read Personal Ads in Literature.

Found one we should add? If you come across an old personal ad that made you laugh, stop, or wonder what happened next, send it to us. Here is what we need.

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Suggest an ad

Found an old personal ad that made you laugh, or stop, or wonder what happened next? Send it to archive@aseeksb.com. If it fits the archive, we will transcribe it, research it, and credit you by the name you choose. You do not need to transcribe it yourself; we work from the scan.

What we need

What we do not include

We read every suggestion, but we cannot promise to add every one.

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