Finding love in the modern era seems to rely heavily on dating apps like Tinder and Bumble.
In fact, today’s young adults, who were born just as online dating began to take over, wouldn’t know it any other way.
But for hundreds of years, the job of matchmaking largely fell to the internet’s paper-and-ink predecessor: the local newspaper.
In the run-up to Valentine’s Day, funny, sad and often poignant clippings reveal how people found a romantic partner in times past.
From articles to love poems to lonely hearts columns, they can provide an unlikely source of inspiration if you have someone to court.
Hilarious newspaper clippings reveal how people found partners before dating apps, in the form of love poems, lonely hearts columns and articles.
The priceless clippings come from Newspapers.com, an online archive of more than 300 million pages of historic newspapers, managed by the genealogy site Ancestry.com.
“The process of finding love is always evolving, and our distant ancestors would be bewildered by today’s world of dating apps and online communication,” said Laura House, family history expert at Ancestry.
“However, while the medium has changed, there are some elements of the dating game that remain familiar.”
An archive clipping, taken from a 1936 edition of Birmingham’s Evening Despatch, shows that the journalist even had to act as a matchmaker.
The story, titled “Midland Woman Seeks Husband,” simply reports on a “truly lonely” 38-year-old lady looking for a husband “in his 50s or 60s.”
In a bid to give herself the best chance of finding her man, she presents herself as “domesticated,” “affectionate,” and “broad-minded.”
The anonymous woman also has a good sense of humor and has a “house of her own in a small seaside resort.”
The priceless clippings come from Newspapers.com, an online archive of more than 300 million pages of historic newspapers, managed by the genealogy site Ancestry.com.
She adds that she is “not a gold digger” – meaning she doesn’t need a man of great wealth – because she has “her own means.”
However, she does want a gentleman of “good reputation and education.”
At the end of the article, male readers are urged to get in touch to register their interest.
Nearly 100 years later, the question of whether or not the article was a success and the woman found love may be lost to history.
In a much earlier clipping, from the Chester Chronicle and Cheshire and North Wales General Advertiser of 1796, a man called William Ed. Cens addresses the object of his desires, Mary, in a poem of his own making.
The author in love writes: ‘HURRY, Mary, oh! come to my arms; I impatiently endure your absence; When I think of those charms, That, tempting, my passions CAPTURE.’
He adds that he values Maria “as much as a friend” and asks her to “bless me once more with delight,” suggesting that they may have already had an encounter.
In this 1920 poem printed in the Hanwell Gazette and Brentford Observer, the author remembers “those soft hands” and “pure eyes”.
Perhaps hurt by previous experiences, William says that “some women will change because of absence,” while others “are faithful to love.”
Another poem, published in the Hanwell Gazette and Brentford Observer in 1920, seems to express the hope of finding another partner.
The author, BLK Henderson, writes: ‘Another heart beats; Inside another soul lives a sigh; And hope longs deeply for another encounter; Another love is born that will not die.
Henderson also remembers “those soft hands” and “pure eyes”, suggesting that she may be struggling to get over a previous lover.
Thirty years later, on July 28, 1950, the popular tabloid Reveille reported on an unconventional event that aimed to help singles connect en masse.
An article in the newspaper said: ‘Trains, coaches and planes are being chartered to bring 2,000 lonely hearts from around the world to the small Northumbrian seaside town of Whitley Bay for the most unconventional convention ever organised.
‘1,000 spinsters and widows and 1,000 single men and widowers aged between 18 and 80 will arrive in Whitley Bay for a weekend of meeting and marrying as delegates to a Lonely Hearts Convention.’
‘Resort plays Cupid’: In July 1950, the Reveille newspaper reports on the gathering of 2,000 men and women at Whitely Bay for the ultimate showdown event.
About 30 years passed and finding a partner became much easier.
In the 1980s, newspapers carried classified ads for telephone appointments, which often involved calling a number and being directed to an operator.
The operator would take some personal information and match it to another person, although it was a laborious process compared to the ease of today’s applications.
Telephone dating largely gave way to online dating in the 1990s, when the Internet became largely accessible from people’s homes.
‘Adults only if you dare’: In this 1988 copy of the Sandwell Evening Mail, classifieds give numbers for telephone appointments
In general, online dating as we know it dates back to 1995, when Match.com, the first widely recognized online dating website, was launched.
Over the next 10 to 15 years, a host of other dating sites were created with a single demographic target, including OKCupid (2004), Plenty of Fish (2006), Grindr (2009), and Happn (2013).
One of the most popular, Bumble, launched in 2014, aimed to give women the upper hand by only allowing them to send the first message.