As Leland Meitzler and Chris Dunham (The Genealogue) -- not to mention Joy Rich -- have already reported, a huge portion of the online New York Times archives (the most recent 20 years, plus 1851-1923) will now be available for free! I went and checked it out, and sure enough, here's a rather gruesome article about an immigrant great-great-grandfather of mine from 1871:
Let's hope that this is the beginning of a trend and that other newspapers follow this example!