Hong Kong Public Records and more

The Hong Kong Government has a wonderful site that is also very user friendly. A simple search query will bring up three tabs as shown. The main two I use are the archives and the “Carl Smith Collection”. The latter of these was a done by the Rev Carl T Smith, who took it upon himself to record ann catalogue thousands of items from Newspapers, Public records, Court filings etc. It has now been digitized and is available to the public on-line. It is free. 

I’ve had amazing results from this site; most recently finding the probate documents for my grandfather’s niece who died in 1944. I will elaborate on that later as it’s a story inself

There’s a link below. 

https://search.grs.gov.hk/en/index.xhtml

Another great free source is the Hong Kong Public Library “Multi Media Information System or MMIS. 
They have a web portal that might look a little confusing as there’s a lot there, but I use only the “Collections” tab and then “Old HK Newspapers” 
The “China Mail” and the “Hong Kong Daily Press” go back to the 1800s and have produced excellent results. They are quite easy to search. There are also a few weekly publications in the list as well as several Chinese Language papers that I’m sure would be great for those who are able to read them.

Here is a link to the website: https://mmis.hkpl.gov.hk/