British Newspaper Archives

[bsward]

Found a phote of my 5x great grandmother which made me subscribe immediately - haven't regretted it - lots of interesting stuff!

Ben

[Thomasin]

It's a wonderful site. I have found an account of a violent thunderstorm in 1827 which caused the Black Bull Inn at Middleton, kept by my children's 4 x great grandfather, Joseph Lees, to be struck by lightning. No-one was hurt, but the lightning split the chimney, made a hole in the roof 'and entered the bed-chamber of Mr and Mrs Lees, tearing away the bed curtains, breaking the windows and rolling up the blind in a very curious manner.' The clock at the top of the stairs was shattered, silver spoons were melted, crockery was broken 'and tinged with a brimstone hue.' A fireplace was knocked down and a window torn out - and the gilt lettering on the inn sign was obliterated. It surprised poor Miss Lees, who was in the kitchen preparing dinner, 'wheeling her completely round.'

Where else could you find such detail about something that happened 184 years ago?

[pok4r]

is this a free site can you tell us,, had a quick look but not easy to follow options,, i'm a little sssssslow

The new website with the first batch of digitised newspapers is due to go live next week. Some people have been able to beta test the site (Me, me they picked me!!!) and I have to say that it is going to be such an enormous help to people in their research.
I have not been fortunate enough to go to Colindale, which is where the British LIbrary Newspaper Library is kept so I can only imagine what it must be like to search through all the newspapers.
Searching the digital stuff is sooo exciting. Trust me, I have just spent three hours looking for my actors and I am delighted to say that The Era is in the first batch of pages along with papers like the Sunderland Echo and Shipping Gazette, The Manchester Evening News, Nottingham evening Post, Belfast newsletter, Freemans Journal,
It has thrown up a mystery for me (nothing unusual with my ancestors)
On Saturday 8th December 1894 the Manchester Evening News carried this story
Harriet Guilfoyle Seymour aged 14, whose parents reside in Halley Street, Greenheys, left home on Thursday afternoon. the girl is of stout build, has short hair and large dark eyes. She was wearing a Tam-o-shanter, black and white check coat, old grey working dress and low lace-up shoes. The mother mentioned this to Mr R. A. Armitage at the City Police Court this morning and the applicant was referred to the press representatives.
please note the address in this first article and the length of time between her leaving and the mother "mentioning" it at the City police court.
On Friday 14th December 1894 the Manchester Evening News carried this story
Mysterious disappearance of a girl
A girl ages 14, named Harriet Guilfoyle Seymour is missing from her home in Craven Street, Chorlton-on-Medlock. She is 4ft 6ins in height and has a round face, brown eyes and dark hair, cut short. At the time of her disappearance she was wearing a grey dress, check ulster and Tam-o-Shanter hat. Her parents would be glad to receive notice of her whereabouts

see the address? well thanks to the expert researches of Jellylegs I know that Harriet was living at Craven Street in the 1891 census with her siblings and a housekeeper. Her mother was in Liverpool in a boarding house. So why does the first story say the parents were residing in Greenheys? I know she was found or came back because I have information from other sources that tell me she was with her mother in Newport in 1905 so she wasn't murdered or anything I am just curious now.

[Pam Downes]

pok4r,
The site referred to in this thread is
http://www.
britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/
(You need to paste the two halves 'together', as because it's a commercial site we are not allowed to post the URL as 'clickable'.)
It's free to search, but then you have pay to see the complete entry. Click 'subscribe' in the top righthand corner of the page for details of cost.

Those newspapers are regional ones.
The Times Digital Archive is often available for free through your local library, and you can usually access it from home if you have a library card.

Pam

[Gillmar]

Well, after reading all your posts, I decided to search "free of charge". At first I had no luck with my English ancestors but then decided to check on my German ancestors, and the German immigrants (mostly pork butchers) who are living in the North / North West of England.

Here, I obtained numerous "signposts" due to their uncommon names.

I searched for the above without clicking on a decade or location and found this to be more successful. I also just gave the surname as often the results would refer to a Mr. .....

I did however find the death of a certain Harry Whitlow who drowned whilst bathing in a pit near Winnington school in Northwich.

I am still learning how to "word" the searches to obtain the result I require.

I found a Christian Jaag of Liverpool (a family I am researching) who was jailed for one month for keeping a homing pigeon. The year was 1915!!! There was no mention of what Christian Jaag was intending to do with the bird which was ordered to be destroyed by the magistrate!!

[Ladkyis]

He could have been a foreign spy!!!! or perhaps he was a receiver of spying info and he would send out the pigeons in boxes on the railway - they used to be sent like that, in fact they could well still be sent like that - and then his agents would write their coded messages and put them in a little tube on the bird's leg and let them fly home.
On the other hand he could have been a pigeon fancier and didn't want to get rid of his favourite bird.

~must learn to curb my imagination~

[Gillmar]

~must learn to curb my imagination~

Please don't do that - imagination is more important than knowledge (and far times more spicy!!)

[t@nya]

I decided to look for a newspaper report on the trial of one of my ancestors, only to discover that there are no issues of the newspaper in question (the Birmingham Gazette) for that year in the Archive. And that, in fact, there are more than one year missing. Does that mean that the issues no longer exist? Or will be issues be scanned and put online sometime in the future.

[Kerrywood]

The digitisation is ongoing, and will be for a long time to come.

From the FAQs ...
Unfortunately, we're not able to tell you exactly when specific newspapers will be added but we will be constantly adding new records so if the one you are searching for is not available at the moment, please do keep checking back as we are adding 8000 new pages every day.

[Coromandel]

To see if the edition in question survives at the British Library, check their catalogue at

http://
catalogue.bl.uk

Choose the fourth option ('Search the Newspaper Catalogue subset'). For the Birmingham Gazette it appears that there are only a handful of surviving issues from before 1800. Later the coverage looks better. A few are marked 'unfit for use'. Though that means they won't be produced for readers, I don't know if it will also prevent them being digitised: I suppose it depends quite what state they're in.