British Newspaper Archive

Shane Bywaters · Guru

RE: British Newspaper Archive

rene oliver · Senior Member

Hi Shane,

Just spent a `hooverless` 4 days. Too busy looking at Newspapers!! I have found details of a Court case in London involving John`s Great Grandfather in 1856. He was a Nuisance Inspector for Kensington Borough. The case was against a butcher selling putrid meat. Very interesting. Also discovered a Great Uncle Moses was a Parish Officer from 1865-1870 in a village about 4 miles from here.

I think there will be many more hours, days, weeks, months or years of discovery for me.

Thanks for showing me how.

Irene

rene oliver · Senior Member

Hi Shane,

Thanks for that info. I will delve deeper tomorrow. At moment too tired to think staight.

Getting old!!!!

Irene

Shane Bywaters · Guru

In fact, I think using this link takes you straight to the spot where you pop in your Essex library card number:

http://infotrac.galegroup.com/galenet/ess_earl

Thanks!
Shane

Shane Bywaters · Guru

Hi Irene,

If you are a member of the Essex libraries you should be able to access the same site, but just via with a different link.

If you go to this link:

http://www.essex.gov.uk/Libraries-Archives/libraries/information/Pages/Reference-library-online.aspx

... then scroll down to, 'Biographical, Historical and Genealogical and' the select the 'British Library 19th century Newspapers (At Home option)', it will open up a link where you can log in with you Essex Library card number (and basically see the same stuff that we would see within Oxfordshire).

Then you're away, though it comes with a warning this service, you could be sidetracked for hours reading through all those fabulous old newspapers!

Hope that helps!
Thanks

rene oliver · Senior Member

Good afternoon from a lovely sunny Colchester.

Would it be possible for me to get a Library Card even though I live in Essex and therefore do not pay anything towards the cost of things.

Irene

Linda · Senior Member

Yes, good idea Shane. I found the whole gruesome story about the decomposing body in the forest on the free library site by just putting in Finstock and the date. So for lazy searchers like me using the two sites in conjuction works well.

Linda

Shane Bywaters · Guru

Morning Linda, For anything I find between 1800-1900 in the Oxford Journal search results in this new website (jacksons Oxford Journal really) I would still shoot stright across to http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itweb/oxfshlib where with your library card number you can see the full newspapers without charge. Much nicer on the pocket! Thanks Shane

Linda · Senior Member

I've just had a little 'go' at this and put in - Finstock Oxfordshire. The first item to come up was dated 1890 'Shocking discovery in a Forest in Oxfordshire'. A decomposing body found !!

Very tantalizing but £80 - oooch.

I think quite a few gems will turn up in this collection and hopefully all the information we need will be in the free bit (wishful thinking eh!)

I also tried - Stonesfield Oxfordshire and the following came up dated 1842 and I can see what you mean Jane about the OCR - I suppose you can sort of read through it - but 763 phew that's a good age even for an Oliver!

Dr at Stonesfield, on the buidy of Jane Oliver, a widow of 763 year's of -' age, who died suddenly by tire visitation sf God on the Mon day So previous.-On the 16th instant, at hilndbiorougls. on else body of of Jep Lindseye, 59 year's of ag~e, who d ... ?

Linda

Shane Bywaters · Guru

Thanks Jane,

Indeed, some searchable 20th century content would be really good, if only it went to 1920 so in particular included the WW1 period that would be really something.

Though of course we shouldn't forget we do get an extra 50 years (1750-1800) with this latest release so we should be thankful and there is potentially some new old stuff in there for us to dig out.

Thanks again Jane,
Shane

jane · Senior Member

Hi Shane

The scanning project is due to continue for quite some time, but I have no idea if any more Oxfordshire papers are in the pipeline. Some of the titles on the website come right up to the 1940s. It would be really great to have some 20th century Oxfordshire stuff searchable too, but we may have to be content with "just" 1750s-1900 for now.

(Jackson's) Oxford Journal became the Oxford Journal Illustrated in 1909 and with that title went on to 1928. So perhaps they will add at least up to 1908 or (if we're lucky) up to 1928.

As an update to my original message, I believe that registered users can make corrections to the OCR text. I haven't yet parted with any money so haven't been able to view or download images of newspaper pages or try my hand at corrections. Apparently the download facility has been a bit erratic but that's only to be expected in the early days of such a heavily hyped site.

Well, that's a long and rambling answer to your very concise question! I wouldn't be much good at tweeting!

Jane

Shane Bywaters · Guru

Hi Jane,

Thanks for posting this.

I noticed you mentioned 'There are no 20th century Oxfordshire newspapers (yet)', my emphasis being on the '(yet)' bit - just wondering with your contacts for all things genealogical do you know if there is any actual work in progress towards any imminent release of 20th century content at all?

Thanks,
Shane

rene oliver · Senior Member

Hi Jane - I saw this on the TV today and wondered if it was available to a simpleton like me.

I might have a dabble. Anything is better than X Factor or Get me out of Here, or whatever it is called.

Irene

jane · Senior Member

The British Newspaper Archive site went live today.

Some of the titles are the same as in the 19th Century British Library Newspapers collection, but there are many others. The time period covered is also considerably wider, from the early 18th century to the mid twentieth century. The actual dates covered vary from title to title. Oxfordshire researchers may be interested to know that the Oxford Journal (as it is called on the British Newspaper Archive, who have dropped the name of its founder Mr Jackson) is included from its earliest issues in the 1750s. There are no 20th century Oxfordshire newspapers (yet).

You can see a certain amount free: for each match you see four lines of the optical character recognition (OCR) software's attempt to 'read' the text. You have to pay to see more: from just under £7 for 2 days' access to just under £80 for a year.

It is useful to be able to see the OCR as it brings home how garbled the text can get.

The search tools don't seem as powerful as on the Gale site (19th Century British Library Newspapers / Times Digital Archive). However, I haven't had very long to experiment with the new site so may be missing features.

No doubt it will reveal more skeletons in the cupboard!