First it was the entire book collections of the published world, closely followed by the journal articles. Now Google is turning its attention to the Newspaper world. The difference with this last effort to digitise the entire known printed world is the benefit this will bring to the genealogical researcher. Imagine being able to search the world's newspapers for mention of family members names. Imagine being able to see what was being discussed at the time in the world of politics and religion and how that impacted on your ancestors lives, loves, jobs and social standing. Well all that will be possible as Google begins to digitise these historical collections.

The company said Monday that it has begun partnering with publishers of newspapers like the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Quebec Chronicle Telegraph to digitize content. The system will let users access past articles as they were printed, complete with photographs, headlines, articles and advertisements.

"Around the globe, we estimate that there are billions of news pages containing every story ever written," Google said in a blog post. "It's our goal to help readers find all of them, from the smallest local weekly paper up to the largest national daily."

As an example, Google noted the availability of an original 1969 article from the Post-Gazette on the landing of a man on the moon.

The project expands on past Google efforts to work with The New York Times and the Washington Post to digitize existing digital archives and make them searchable via the Google News Archive, Google added.