How to Find Old Ads in Hindustan Times

By Deborah Priyadharshini | Independent Research Consultant, 11 years working with legal documentation and newspaper records across North India

One of the clients called me in a panic. Her father was dead and the family wanted evidence that a notice of change of name had been placed many years ago- in a property court. She recollected that it was in Hindustan Times. She lacked the clipping. The newspaper had disappeared.

We found it. This took approximately 40 minutes in the company of knowing where to seek.

That case altered my explanation of digital newspaper archives to those. The majority of them assume that the old ads are just lost. They're not. The system of the HT epaper classified has years of history under its belt - and understanding how to use it is a big relief.

The Value of Archives: Legal Proof, Family History, and Everything Between

Old newspaper advertisements have an impact that is greater than we anticipate.

When the official records of a death are lost, a published obituary is sometimes the only third-party record of that death. An advertisement in Hindustan Times may be taken to fulfil the requirement of a passport office of providing evidence of notice but it must be accompanied by evidence of the date, the page and the name of the publication. In Delhi, the use of printed pages of epapers as documentary evidence has been accepted by the courts where the original was not available but I would advise that you consult your lawyer before assuming that it is applicable everywhere.

Another application that I have been witnessing more recently is family history research. A person following the death of a grandfather in the 1990s, a marriage announcement article that nobody preserved. The Hindustan Times obituary archives are even older than most people think they are - although the digital overlay on the web does not run back to 2005. More on that below.

The thing is: do not pay a legal consultant and give up, go to the archive with your own hands.

Navigating the HT Epaper: Step by Step

Go to epaper.hindustantimes.com. That is the straight-forward path. Never look it up on Google, you will find yourself redirected all the time to third-party aggregator sites that make you pay to access a free resource.

After being on the epaper home page:

Step 1 — Choose your city edition. Hindustan Times has various editions in Delhi, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Lucknow, etc. Obituaries and other classified advertisements can be edition specific. In case the notice was advertised in the Delhi edition, then it will not be found by searching Mumbai.

Step 2 — Find the calendar or date-picker on the upper navigation. This is where the majority becomes stagnant. It does not necessarily have the label on it. On desktop it is a small calendar icon at the top of the edition choice. On mobile it is occasionally hidden in a menu.

Step 3 — Click to the date you require. The paper of that day is loaded into the system.

Step 4 — Visit the classifieds. The epaper copies the print format, so you will have to search the classifieds pages - generally at the back half of the paper. The page numbers differ according to version and year.

Step 5 — Use Ctrl+F (or the in-built search, if available) to search for a name or keyword on the loaded page.

That is the general course. Some of the lessons I have had the hard way: the system will hang on slow connections. In case of a page that refuses to load, switch to the desktop version on Chrome instead of the mobile version. And even to the years before 2010, some pages do not scan evenly - text search might be unavailable on those.

Search Filters: Dates and Keywords

The epaper interface is not a database with a search bar. That is the most widespread misconception.

You are actually going through an electronic copy of the newspaper. You manoeuvre through the date, and then the page. The keyword search only happens on the page which you have opened up and not on the whole archive.

Your best strategy to locate an obituary advertisement in Hindustan Times archives is:

• Be familiar with the approximate period. Sometime in 2010 only means that you may have a perusal of 30 or more issues.
• Know the edition. Delhi, Lucknow and Chandigarh tended to operate different classified sections.
• Name of day of the week. The obituary notices in HT have the tendency to run a cluster on particular days - especially the Saturdays in most issues but it is not a strict rule. I have witnessed families putting advertisements on the day the funeral is going on, and it might be any day.

You are starting in the middle and are working outward, in case you have a rough range of dates. Do not begin with January 1st and go by it — you will set fire to it before you locate it.

In case of name change advertisements and publicity, public notices, which is located in the sub-section of classifieds, is where to look. It is normally marked distinctly.

Downloading obituary advertisement in Hindustan Times and Saving: Keeping a Digital Copy

The epaper allows you to save single pages as PDF. Find the download icon - it is normally situated in the toolbar when a page is open. The file is downloadable with a decent resolution, which is sufficient in the majority of instances to serve as a legal document.

Some points to mention:

Certain versions limit non-subscribed downloads. The free access version allows you to see but not necessarily to download. In the case of a paywall on a particular years material, the HT subscription packages are available on their site - I will not provide prices as they are subject to fluctuation.

As a lawyer, I always suggest that you print the downloaded PDF and save the original file. Both are occasionally requested by courts and passport offices. The direct certified copy of HT is a different matter; you would have to call their archives or syndication department. It is not as it is on downloading the epaper.

In case of no download, the metadata visible (the date, the name of the edition, the number of the page) on the full page screenshot will be a backup. Not perfect, but an improvement.

Bridging the Past with Digital Access

The difference between I needed that old ad and I found that old ad used to refer to, a phone call, a visit to the newspaper office, and a lot of luck.

It's smaller now. Not lost - the archive has holes particularly prior to 2005 and the interface is not designed to be easy to search. However, with the edition, approximate date, and section you are always likely to find it.

The online version of the HT Classifieds is virtually the same as its print edition; what you download is what it printed. That is important in documentation.

In case you are unable to locate what you require using the epaper, the second option is to call directly the reader relations or archives department of HT. They make field requests, but the turnaround is variable and certified records may have a fee.