Monday 12 October 2015

Belfast Newsletter BMD entries 1738-1925 to be searchable on Ancestry

For some time the Belfast Newsletter, the longest running daily newspaper in the world, has been available on various websites, not least on the British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk) from 1820-1900 and on the Irish News Archive (www.irishnewsarchive.com) from 1738-1890. Ancestry (www.ancestry.co.uk), however, has a very respectable run of the newspaper from 1738-1925, with one problem - it has for some time only been made available in a browse only format.

That has now changed, at least partially. As part of its World Archives Project, Ancestry is indexing the newspaper intimations columns for births, marriages and deaths from 1738-1925, via a new interface at http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=2193. This is therefore the only site that will allow you to search beyond 1900 for those records, at least until 1925. At present the site has completed indexing for 1828-1858, with further updates to arrive in due course.

Every little helps! But just when will someone think about digitising the Belfast Telegraph, the elephant in the room for Belfast based research?!

UPDATE: I originally announced this as a full database from 1738-1925 - only 1828-1858 has been completed so far, with further announcements due. As such I have amended the post.

Chris

For details on my genealogy guide books, including my recently released Discover Irish Land Records and Down and Out in Scotland: Researching Ancestral Crisis, please visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html. My Pinterest account is at https://www.pinterest.com/chrismpaton/.

1 comment:

  1. I wish they'd do the Belfast Telegraph. My Belfast family used that paper. I'm missing one of my ancestors and he might well be listed in their obituaries but without an exact date...no luck. I've not found him in the Civil Registration and he might well have died 1863.

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