Murray from a torn newspaper clip

[fullscott]

Thanks fullscott.
Where do I run 'A quick search of the newspapers...' ?
Cheers,
Ray

Like Lesley, I use the British Newspaper Archive. (Sadly, not all newspapers have been digitised - and, even more sadly, the transcriptions sometimes appear to have been done by digital morons. It's better to read the actual paper, rather than rely on them.)

But I've not found your article with photo. The 2 papers mentioning Col Bower were the "Aberdeen Evening Express" & "Aberdeen Weekly Journal", both dated October 1915.

The "Buchan Observer" of 14 Sept 1915 lists the recruits "since 20 July" for the 3/5th Battalion (Buchan and Formartine) Gordon Highlanders - one of whom is WILLIAM MURRAY, Waterton Croft, Ellon.

My geographical knowledge of Scotland is sketchy. Would these be your William's areas?

Happy Hunting
Jane

[fullscott]

Using "1/7th Gordon" as my search phrase has revealed:

STONEHAVEN GORDON KILLED - The death has occurred in France of Private William Murray, 1/7th Gordon Highlanders. Deceased was about 22 years of age, and a gardener to trade. His father, Mr W Murray, is a plate-layer on the Caledonian Railway, and resides at Kirktown, Fetterresso.

"Montrose, Arbroath and Brechin review; and Forfar and Kincardineshire advertiser" - Friday 1 October 1915.

(courtesy BNA)

That looks promising. Yes?

Jane

[Pam Downes]

Using "1/7th Gordon" as my search phrase has revealed:

STONEHAVEN GORDON KILLED - The death has occurred in France of Private William Murray, 1/7th Gordon Highlanders. Deceased was about 22 years of age, and a gardener to trade. His father, Mr W Murray, is a plate-layer on the Caledonian Railway, and resides at Kirktown, Fetterresso.

"Montrose, Arbroath and Brechin review; and Forfar and Kincardineshire advertiser" - Friday 1 October 1915.

(courtesy BNA)

That looks promising. Yes?

Jane

That's 'our' William, Jane.
I'd found that (post #20) but (being a slow typist) merely summarised it instead of typing it out in full.

Pam

[Pam Downes]

Like Lesley, I use the British Newspaper Archive. (Sadly, not all newspapers have been digitised - and, even more sadly, the transcriptions sometimes appear to have been done by digital morons. It's better to read the actual paper, rather than rely on them.)

But I've not found your article with photo. The 2 papers mentioning Col Bower were the "Aberdeen Evening Express" & "Aberdeen Weekly Journal", both dated October 1915.

The "Buchan Observer" of 14 Sept 1915 lists the recruits "since 20 July" for the 3/5th Battalion (Buchan and Formartine) Gordon Highlanders - one of whom is WILLIAM MURRAY, Waterton Croft, Ellon.

My geographical knowledge of Scotland is sketchy. Would these be your William's areas?

Happy Hunting
Jane

I don't think this one is 'our' William. I know that soldiers got swapped around regiments as necessary, but there's barely time between 20 July and 14 September to get a soldier trained and sent to France let alone transferred to another regiment.

Ellon - not to be confused with Errol as mentioned in post #1 - is about 16 miles from Aberdeen.
If you search the newspapers for 'Private Murray' in 1915 there's literally hundreds of entries.

Pam

[Ray Gibbs]

Like Lesley, I use the British Newspaper Archive. (Sadly, not all newspapers have been digitised - and, even more sadly, the transcriptions sometimes appear to have been done by digital morons. It's better to read the actual paper, rather than rely on them.)

But I've not found your article with photo. The 2 papers mentioning Col Bower were the "Aberdeen Evening Express" & "Aberdeen Weekly Journal", both dated October 1915.

The "Buchan Observer" of 14 Sept 1915 lists the recruits "since 20 July" for the 3/5th Battalion (Buchan and Formartine) Gordon Highlanders - one of whom is WILLIAM MURRAY, Waterton Croft, Ellon.

My geographical knowledge of Scotland is sketchy. Would these be your William's areas?

Happy Hunting
Jane

'Fraid not Jane, but thanks for checking anyway.
Cheers,
Ray

[Ray Gibbs]

Bingo Jane - right on the nose. Yippee... :-)

Cheers,
Ray

[Ray Gibbs]

Folks,
Looks like Jane et al arrived at the very chap - I think...?
Did anyone see my images: 1 of the torn newspaper and 1 with my transcript...?
Given my difficulty in finding the URL field, here is the URL from postimage.
https://postimg.cc/gallery/sBkZxmY
The reason I ask, is because the article found in the paper, is not the 'torn clip' I have, so I am still looking for the newspaper to match the torn clip.


Cheers,
Ray

[Lesley Robertson]

The complication is that these stories were circulated among other papers who would use them, even if they belonged at the other end of the country, if the paper had an empty space. That was why I asked whether the Oddfellows had their own, maybe national-spread, newspaper. I could imaging his membership being of interest to other members more than to Joe Public in general... It might be worth tracing their central office and asking.

It still happens today - I gave an interview to our Uni internal news sheet and found myself being quoted on national news once. It doesn't seem to work when I deliberately "plant" something though!

[helachau]

more sadly, the transcriptions sometimes appear to have been done by digital morons.

Jane

Puzzled by your reference to "transcriptions". Transcribing does not feature as part of capturing these newspapers via OCR.

[fullscott]

Puzzled by your reference to "transcriptions". Transcribing does not feature as part of capturing these newspapers via OCR.

Err ... not being technically minded, I don't understand how these things work. But I assume that, in order for something originally produced on paper to appear on the internet, it has to be scanned ("digitised") and the words are transcribed ("coded"?). Either by humans or, I suspect in this case, by machine.

So blurry print can appear as "bury pint" e.g.

Sorry. Maybe "transcription" is not the correct word to use.

This modern world is a mystery to me!!

Jane