British Newspapers Archives Success!!!

[DianaCanada]

Read about the fairly new website for British Newspapers Archives and decided to have a look and purchase some credits.
Here is what I found in a just a couple of hours (some of these are sad stories):
One of my ancestors, Mary Kenyon Proctor Saul Baines (I descend from a Saul son) left a cannister of hot tea on the table and her grand child pulled it over herself and died three days later - inquest ruled it an accidental death; another ancestor, Esther Saul (Mary's daughter in law) testified at an inquest about the death of a neighbour's infant - probably would have been ruled crib death today; and more for me, a mystery solved finally - my ancestor's sister, Ann Hibbert married Dixon Brearley in Manchester - they had five children together and no sign of Dixon after 1871 although the youngest child, Dixon Jr. was born in Douglas, Isle of Man in 1868 - but of course I had no death record for Dixon Sr. - found several accounts of horrendous story of a fire at a school in Douglas on January 31, 1868 where Dixon died - the only fatality. He must have been a volunteer fireman as it said he was a sawyer, which I knew, and mentioned where he worked. It also mentioned that his wife was due any day to have another child. She did - Dixon Jr. was baptised less than four weeks later. A collection was taken up in the community for her.
I also found a few marriage notices for other relatives, and quite a bit about an ancestor's brother who was an early constable in Huddersfield and later turned to selling groceries - and got into trouble himself for selling beer that was drunk on the premises!

All this in a few hours...and I'm just getting started!

[terrysfamily]

I too have had great success looking at the British Newspaper Archives. I did a search on my Great Grandfather Campbell Drayton and got 7 hits. Brilliant.

Here are just a couple

In March of 1875 Campbell bought 2687 yards of land in Ashbey Ville in Lincolnshire. The value of the land in today’s money would be £88,900.00 using average earnings.

In September of 1875 Great GrandPappy, then aged 37, was a contractor. One evening whilst paying out his men’s wages through the window of his dwelling house, a hand came in and made off with the lot, £23,000.00 in today’s money. They called the police who didn’t apprehend the suspect until he had reached London. They brought him back for trial but he was found not guilty. Hmmmm, wonder who did do the job.

I had been told Campbell was quite a wealthy man, I didn’t realise he was playing with that sort of money though.

[terrysfamily]

Hmmmm, wonder who did do the job.

Just found out who dun it. Dum, Dum, Dum, Dum (Eastenders stylie) It was the clerk Ralph Wilkinson S.H.O.C.K. He did the deed and no mistake. He was done for embezzling funds from the company.

[DianaCanada]

Isn't it great adding something to the bare bones of facts that we find?
Today I identified another child for an ancestor couple (after close to 20 years after "finding" the parents) - the marriage for a Jane Feay and James Clarke appears in FamilySearch but I couldn't identify her as mine as they married before civil registration. It's another sad story though - in the 12 June 1841 edition of a Manchester paper mentioned the suicide of James and that his sister-in-law had found them. The sister-in-law Margaret Feay Wolstenholme was my ancestor's sister - so now I have Jane Feay added to the tree. The story mentioned that Jane had died three months before and James had sunk into a deep depression. It said where he was lodging and who he was lodging with so I was able to find him on the 1841 census. It was chilling to realize he had killed himself in the wee hours of June 7th, just hours after the census was officially taken.

I find newspapers to be the most interesting source for family history - and I encourage everyone to give them a go - they can be instrumental in knocking down brickwalls.

[sueannbowen]

Pleased for you. I have found nothing whatsoever; my lot were obviously boring in the extreme.

[terrysfamily]

Isn't it great adding something to the bare bones of facts that we find?

500 credits for £6.95 at the cost of 10 credits per article, that’s 50 articles. Great

But not so great when you waste 400 credits cause your times up and then find one article you missed to get

[Cheryl Jones]

That sounds like a site that I could use. Do they have a fairly good sampling of newspapers from all over? I am interested in Birmingham and London areas at this point (from about the 1860's through the 1900's).