Historical news and records update

Historical news online

The big news this week on historical records newly appearing online is that of the British Newspaper Archives site going fully live. Thousands of publications dating back as far as 1750 have been scanned and turned into text using OCR software (not manual transcription). It starts with about 4 million pages, with thousands more to be added every day during 2012. The partnership between the British Library and brightsolid online publishing is set to digitise up to 40 million newspaper pages from the library’s collection over the next ten years.

The newspaper archives held by the National Library of Wales are also in the process of being digitised, with a launch expected in 2012 with some 2 million pages. Check this NLW page for updates.

1911 Census on Ancestry

Following Ancestry making Wales (and islands) 1911 census records fully searchable, their November Update says:

Within the next couple of months, we’ll release a second batch of transcriptions, covering many of the largest counties (in England).

UPDATE And now (2nd Dec), the December Update email says that the second batch will be released on 8th December. From then, the following areas will be fully searchable for the 1911 census:

• Channel Islands
• Cheshire
• Cornwall**
• Cumberland
• Derbyshire
• Devon**
• Durham
• Isle of Man
• Lancashire
• Leicestershire
• Lincolnshire
• London
• Norfolk**
• Northumberland
• Nottinghamshire
• Royal Navy
• Rutland
• Wales
• Warwickshire
• Westmorland
• Worcestershire**
• Yorkshire—East Riding
• Yorkshire—North Riding
• Yorkshire—West Riding

FURTHER UPDATE

** Despite that announcement mentioned above, at 3rd Jan 2012 Ancestry has changed the details for 1911 Census to read:

Partially searchable:

• Cornwall
• Devon
• Essex
• Norfolk
• Worcestershire

As an aside, I find it funny that I am emailed a copy of the monthly Ancestry Update as a ‘lapsed’ member, and get an Ancestry inbox notification weeks later as an ‘Essential’ subscriber. While I am currently a Premium subscriber!  Their internal database systems need an upgrade, I think.