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  • British Newspaper Archive

    I have just returned to researching my family tree, having just retired. I have most of my tree 'built' back to 1700s, and what fascinates me is finding out how they lived and what they did.

    So I have been using the Newspapers, I search at home and then take a trip to the library to download my finds.

    I have realised that once visited in the library I can look at them at home and read, cut and paste as I wish.

    so far I have searched by
    • surnames (and full names), within the county that there were residing
    • surnames with home town
    • addresses - this was entirely unsuccessful - only road searches were effective, but never for my family
    • villages - where they are small


    I have realised that any really old newspapers I need to use f instead of s when searching.
    As I don't have a subscription - but have a few free credits, I bookmark everything I visit, with various titles so that I don't use my credits in error.

    So have found relatives:
    • that ran a pub and employed people and owned property
    • came to a nasty end with a threshing machine
    • Found a few properties sold by auction - various
    • A will dispute
    • found my mother in a running race and my father passing his exams in 1930s!
    • A few crimes

    I find if I don't limit by county i just get so many hits, and if I put full name, I miss articles as they often use initials, or none at all.

    Would love to hear if others use this resource and what they get from it.

    What else should I try and search for? Anyone hit upon a good idea/formula for searching.
    Do you save searches and then run them periodically to see if they turn up anything new?



    Carolyn
    Family Tree site

    Researching: Luggs, Freeman - Cornwall; Dayman, Hobbs, Heard - Devon; Wilson, Miles - Northants; Brett, Everett, Clark, Allum - Herts/Essex
    Also interested in Proctor, Woodruff

  • #2
    I have also searched by using incorrect spellings! One of my ancestors lived in a remote Scottish hamlet which had been mistranscribed, then corrected on the 1841 census. Routine searching by the correct name of the hamlet turned up nothing useful. Eventually I put the mistranscription into google and up came a very old posting on a forum enquiring about my ancestors. We exchanged mutually helpful information that neither of us would have found otherwise.

    What I'm trying to say, lol, is that this strategy might work for you when you have exhausted all other avenues.

    OC

    Comment


    • #3
      I find that anything 'newsworthy' of any sort is repeated (word for word) through many different newspapers. That being so it does pay NOT to limit the search to an area if possible because what the OCR system picks up may be clearer for it on one paper than another. Therefore you may find the 'story' reported several counties away just because the print in that particular paper is clearer.
      Anne

      Comment


      • #4
        Oooh, Carolyn, just seen you are from Ampthill. All my Dad's family came from there. Maybe you remember Peck's of Ampthill?
        Anne

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Anne in Carlisle View Post
          I find that anything 'newsworthy' of any sort is repeated (word for word) through many different newspapers. That being so it does pay NOT to limit the search to an area if possible because what the OCR system picks up may be clearer for it on one paper than another. Therefore you may find the 'story' reported several counties away just because the print in that particular paper is clearer.
          Anne
          Yes I am finding that, but without limits - there are just so many hits, I sit looking through whilst watching TV, and just keep adding bookmarks.
          Carolyn
          Family Tree site

          Researching: Luggs, Freeman - Cornwall; Dayman, Hobbs, Heard - Devon; Wilson, Miles - Northants; Brett, Everett, Clark, Allum - Herts/Essex
          Also interested in Proctor, Woodruff

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Anne in Carlisle View Post
            Oooh, Carolyn, just seen you are from Ampthill. All my Dad's family came from there. Maybe you remember Peck's of Ampthill?
            Anne
            I have lived here for more than 20 years, but originally from Essex, but can have a look at things here for you if you need anything.

            I was born in Harlow, and oddly I traced my Dad's family back to Harlow when it was a small village in the 1800s, Dad hadn't a clue, thought his family had just always been from London.
            Carolyn
            Family Tree site

            Researching: Luggs, Freeman - Cornwall; Dayman, Hobbs, Heard - Devon; Wilson, Miles - Northants; Brett, Everett, Clark, Allum - Herts/Essex
            Also interested in Proctor, Woodruff

            Comment


            • #7
              Thanks for the offer. You probably know that Bedfordshire is very poorly represented in the online databases but I have spent many happy hours in the archives in Bedford. It's such a long way from here though!
              Anne

              Comment


              • #8
                Carolyn .............


                don't forge that the "f" used in olden days very often stood for "ss", not a single "s"
                My grandmother, on the beach, South Bay, Scarborough, undated photo (poss. 1929 or 1930)

                Researching Cadd, Schofield, Cottrell in Lancashire, Buckinghamshire; Taylor, Park in Westmorland; Hayhurst in Yorkshire, Westmorland, Lancashire; Hughes, Roberts in Wales.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Sylvia
                  The use of f seems very complicated! I have a family name of bostock and managed to find quite a few things on boftock, have yet to discover who they all are, have not had a recent trip to the library.

                  Anne,
                  Not done too much in Bedfordshire - I have actually found some family in Langford/Henlow and he was transported to VDL - the beds on line gaol records were all there for me. Were you family long in Ampthill?
                  Carolyn
                  Family Tree site

                  Researching: Luggs, Freeman - Cornwall; Dayman, Hobbs, Heard - Devon; Wilson, Miles - Northants; Brett, Everett, Clark, Allum - Herts/Essex
                  Also interested in Proctor, Woodruff

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Um, it isn't f it is the long s, used where there is a double ss. There is no horizontal bar on it. It is also sometimes written like an open letter p which makes it look like Mops for Moss, Crops for Cross and so on.

                    OC

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      The OCR on the newspaper archive reads it as an f so need to search with f instead of s to be sure to get correct data. if searching for a double s will have to try a p also then, luckily no surnames with double s
                      Carolyn
                      Family Tree site

                      Researching: Luggs, Freeman - Cornwall; Dayman, Hobbs, Heard - Devon; Wilson, Miles - Northants; Brett, Everett, Clark, Allum - Herts/Essex
                      Also interested in Proctor, Woodruff

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Carolyn, parts of my Dad's family were in Ampthill from about 1690 until my grandparents died in the 1950s and 1960s and some of his cousins until the 1980s. No one left there now though.
                        Anne

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          interesting, sounds like you have done extensive research if you have been to records office, and assume you have visited Ampthill. Are the properties still here that they lived in?
                          Carolyn
                          Family Tree site

                          Researching: Luggs, Freeman - Cornwall; Dayman, Hobbs, Heard - Devon; Wilson, Miles - Northants; Brett, Everett, Clark, Allum - Herts/Essex
                          Also interested in Proctor, Woodruff

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            My grandparents lived at 105 Dunstable Street. I loved playing in the garden when I was a child. Grandfather was a Peck (hence the reference to Pecks of Ampthill, which was a sort of department store in the Market Place.) granny was a Coleman and they had a grocery business near the start of Dunstable street. Great grandparents lived in the house next door to the Methodist church, it was called Illesley then, not sure if it is now. We trawled through the graveyard last year, which was quite a job as you can imagine. I never see anyone with ancestors from Ampthill, so forgive my excitement!!
                            Anne
                            Last edited by Anne in Carlisle; 04-02-19, 08:23.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              they were quite well known in the town then. we came in 1995.

                              I did wonder if anyone had mentioned it on the ampthill forum (sadly not used much these days).


                              note the links on the signature of memory lane - have you seen the sites for the old images?
                              Carolyn
                              Family Tree site

                              Researching: Luggs, Freeman - Cornwall; Dayman, Hobbs, Heard - Devon; Wilson, Miles - Northants; Brett, Everett, Clark, Allum - Herts/Essex
                              Also interested in Proctor, Woodruff

                              Comment


                              • #16
                                ...cant find the edit button...
                                is 105 dunstable street one with the huge garden?
                                Carolyn
                                Family Tree site

                                Researching: Luggs, Freeman - Cornwall; Dayman, Hobbs, Heard - Devon; Wilson, Miles - Northants; Brett, Everett, Clark, Allum - Herts/Essex
                                Also interested in Proctor, Woodruff

                                Comment


                                • #17
                                  It used to have a huge monkey puzzle tree in the garden near the side access. On the other side of the little side access used to be a dairy. Legend has it that an uncle brought the monkey puzzle seed from Argentina where he worked for a while as an engineer before he came back home and married in 1885. He and his family also lived in that house before my grandparents.
                                  Yes I have seen the site with old images of Ampthill, thanks.
                                  Anne

                                  Comment


                                  • #18
                                    I know the one - I think. Will have a look when I go into town. I guess you have seen the Andrew Underwood books too? He mentions 105 as being the home of Nancy Pawsey in the late 18th early 19th Century, also an advert of Frank Peck Furniture in another book.
                                    there was a book Early closing Tuesday by Jeanette Waller, but went out of print really quickly as she died around the time it was published,

                                    Has anyone done successful research with the newspapers?

                                    My husband has travelling china/earthenware dealers in his tree, oddly one of the marriages was in loads of papers - but never another or a birth, I wonder why they added to the papers and no more. Unless the next time they were in different town and as yet the papers are not available.
                                    Carolyn
                                    Family Tree site

                                    Researching: Luggs, Freeman - Cornwall; Dayman, Hobbs, Heard - Devon; Wilson, Miles - Northants; Brett, Everett, Clark, Allum - Herts/Essex
                                    Also interested in Proctor, Woodruff

                                    Comment

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