Valentine's Day in 2024 might feel like it's all swiping back and forth on apps but it's not too different from the world of placing a dating advert in your local newspaper.
The global leader in family history, Ancestry, has uncovered some of the funniest pickup lines and dating adverts from the past with the help of its own newspaper archive brand Newspapers.com.
From Lonely Hearts columns to heart-felt poems, the team of researchers found that the process of looking for love really hasn't changed that much over the decades.
Using a database of 919 million newspapers, Ancestry found everything from dating profile inspiration to even times on how to make the ultimate romantic gesture - just in time for Valentine’s Day.
Laura House, Family History Expert at Ancestry says: “The process of finding love is always evolving, and our distant ancestors would be bewildered by today’s world of online communication and dating apps.
"However, though the medium has changed, there are some elements of the dating game that remain familiar.
"Publishing an advertisement in the Lonely Hearts column of the newspaper is not so different from writing a profile on a dating app, and bold romantic gestures like love poems are timeless.
"Newspapers.com has 919 million digitised newspapers to help you discover how your ancestors found love, and you might even find yourself inspired to follow in their footsteps this Valentine’s Day.”
One of the clippings dates back all of the way to 1796 with the poem entitled 'A Poem to a Beau'.
Published in the Chester Chronicle on Friday, July 29 1976, the poem is addressed to a 'young lady'.
The author proclaimed for his love to come to him quickly, writing: "HASTE, Mary, oh! come to my arms; Impatient thy absence I bear; When musing to think of those charms, Which, tempting, my passions ENSNARE".
The team at Ancestry also uncovered a moving poem published on Valentine's Day 1920 from a B.L.K. Henderson.
The heartfelt poem was published in the Hanwell Gazette and Brentford Observer, begins: "Tis but a ribbon and a faded flower,
"Yet even now I feel those gentle hands, while those pure eyes again exert their power, and wreathe around my heart the magic bands".
The singles looking for love continues over the years with a dating advert from 1936.
A letter from a woman from the Midlands featured in the Evening Dispatch where she proclaimed that she was seeking a husband.
The woman added that she wasn't a golddigger since she had means of her own.
The 38-year-old wrote to the chairman of Minehead Council to help her find a partner.
The author wrote: "I am 38, domesticated, affectionate, a home-live, broadminded, and also have a sense of humour. I am no gold-digger as I have a means of my own".
The tradition of finding a Valentine continues well into the 90s and 00s.
In 1992, one Lonely Heart placed an advert with the South Wales Echo, sharing that he was an "easy going, fun loving, self-employed single fella".
The 27-year-old added that he needed his broken heart repaired by February 14.
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Newspapers have always been a valuable source for romantic advice too.
For instance, this Daily Telegraph article from March 13 2007, exposed the 'secret of attraction'.
The Science Editor at the time, Roger Highfield, explained: It is not simply how you look but how you flaunt it, that is the secret of attraction. A curvaceous figure has to wiggle in the right way too - or swagger in the case of men.
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