Newspaper Archives Newspaper Archives "Have you noticed that life, real honest-to-goodness life, with murders and catastrophes and fabulous inheritances, happens almost exclusively in the newspapers?" Jean Anouilh - The Rehearsal (1950)
Newspaper archives can provide a wealth of information on ancestors - ranging from obituaries to "wanted by Police" notices - and it this kind of information that helps to transform a simple list of names and dates into an interesting and informative family history. To date I have come across only two national U.K. newspapers who provide a detailed index and/or search facility, but if you know of any others please let me know!
The Times
"The Times Digital Archive 1785-1985" (digitally
scanned images of
all pages/articles) is available online
at http://infotrac.london.galegroup.com/itweb/cam_earl?db=TTDA courtesy of many central library
websites such as Cambridge - and access is available to anyone with a library "I.D." number. I have
summarised the most relevant and interesting mentions of the name Ellerton as follows:
"Palmer's Index to The Times" (a CD-ROM published by Chadwyck-Healey) covers the period 1790-1905, and can be used in conjunction with microfilms of The Times held in many large libraries. There were, however, only around 50 mentions of Ellertons - compared to the 2,000+ in the Digital Archive above - but interestingly some of those included in the Palmer's were not in the Digital version (these have been incorporated in the two pages shown above).
The London Gazette
The Gazette's website consists of a search
facility (via the "Archive" menu) and PDF
images of the original newspaper.
The Guardian
I completed searches for Ellertons on The Guardian's
website in November 2007, using a
promotional "24-hour access" (normally a subscription site).
Page last updated:
April 2008
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