Accessing Historic Newspapers - Which is Better, BNA or FindMyPast?

[Wexflyer]

The search engines have quite different interfaces and facilities.

Their strengths vary. Generally speaking, the BNA interface is more powerful, having phrases, and "do not include" features.

However the FindMyPast interface offers the ability to filter on multiple things at the same time, which the BNA does not. I filter on Norfolk/Suffolk frequently, since my family/ancestors lived on the border. The FindMyPast also has good name wildcarding.

Since BOTH give small text summaries (that can be used as a source of unambiguous text snippets) there is no great difficulty using which ever search engine suits your current target, and then using a snippet in which ever version you have a subscription to see the actual newspaper.

Thanks While all the responses have been useful, this is more the sort of insight I was looking for 

[Biggles50]

If it is just Newspaper archives you want then the answer is straightforward.

Subscribe to each for a Month.

That time is more than sufficient to research hundreds of family members.

I exhausted FindMyPast in a couple of days and BNA in a week.

[jc26red]

Wexflyer, I have founds loads, in excess of 300, of newspaper articles on my husband’s family in Ireland on FindMyPast, their Irish collection is brilliant.

[Wexflyer]

Wexflyer, I have founds loads, in excess of 300, of newspaper articles on my husband’s family in Ireland on FindMyPast, their Irish collection is brilliant.

I used BNA, and found quite a lot. Including confirmation of my descent from the leading family of Confederate Co. Wexford in the 1600s 

But I also found their search engine clunky. Sometimes it would take me many attempts and much time to find article that I was pretty sure existed. A combination, I suspect of OCR errors, in combination with the search engine not being flexible enough to properly compensate for the OCR induced errors.

Two other comments:
At least for Wexford, they (BNA) have not scanned/included early papers that exist, which is somewhat frustrating, as the earlier ones are the most interesting.

Separate from the BNA and FindMyPast is the INA, with a different newspaper collection.

[jc26red]

I did most of my research on this family quite a few years ago now, the OCR on FindMyPast wasn’t that good back then but I persevered. Just entered the names I was researching and hit go, thankfully the name isn’t that common.

I shall have a look at INA and see if they have anything of interest to me. Co Limerick, Dublin and Cork mostly with the odd article popping up in Tipperary. Thank you.

[coombs]

I tend to use FindMyPast mainly, but have occasionally cross referenced any BNA articles with FindMyPast ones. Out of the two I would choose FindMyPast.