Papers Past

You can search region by region. A great way of learning about your family and their lifestyle at the time, (if it made the newspapers) some good, some not so good. I've been able to read quite a bit about my extended family with birth/marriage/death notices and court trials.School functions are also mentioned, it was quite a buzz to read of my g/grandparents children's school days.

 

Discovered some brushes with the law as well as the sad circumstances surrounding the death of my husbands great great grandfather. As well as seeing advertisements for businesses owned by my ancestors. A great site but should come with a warning, it is fascinating reading and you can lose hours without realising it.

 

Paper Past is great but I found another site, recommended by Jane Gow, which had other magazines which included one that was all social stuff like marriages etc I found about 20 photos of family members including one of my mlother's brother whom I had never seen a photo of. the site is here. Well worth checking out.

 

Thank you for putting this up Kathleen, it is a site I haven't seen before and is one I must investigate as my family come from NZ via England, Ireland and Australia.

 

I have found some interesting family articles in the National Newspaper Archives from the West Country and London. A Great Great Grandfather from Bermondsey who was badly beaten up by the Police and charged with affray only to have the Judge dismiss the charges and order an investigation into the Police Officers concerned. The next trace of him I found was laying in a Workhouse in Bermondsey, paralyzed.He spent the next 30 years there until his death. I have often wondered if the two facts are connected.
Another ancestor was the first man to be charged with a motor offence driving with a defective light in Cornwall back in the early 30s. I also found the earliest photo I have ever seen of my Grandfather and his three brothers who all joined up together and were featured in an article in 1916 with the title "Four Brothers From Broadwood".
Some of the most useful articles come from weddings and Funerals. I have found numerous members of the family and where they were living at that time from these articles.
My Grans Wedding in 1922 was described down to the colour of the dresses and the hymns.
Don't dismiss the adverts though. I have found farm sales where everything on the farm and even furniture is listed from a Great Uncle.

 

Just wanted to bring this site to the forefront because it does an excellent job of clipping so that your search displays very neatly . If you've been frustrated by some of the UK newspaper searches via FMP for example it's worth looking at. I find FMP extremely annoying for WWI soldier research as the transcription does not always match the scan for punctuation. It's a critical point if you are trying to pair a service number with a name.

 

I checked out the above site, but can't see any link/s to find the social stuff. Am I missing something?