British Newspaper Archive website help to use the website please.

[Vasquez109]

Hello everyone.

First things first, may I just say first that I am NOT after any lookups just some advice on using this website!

After listening to several friends (and seeing the information gleaned from the aforementioned website) I took the plunge and paid for a subscription. What a complete waste of time that was! Spent a whole evening trying to find just one match of my 105 Stevensons. Absolutely nothing, except for one article from 1933 (which I already had from my visit to a library in Sussex).

I tried searching with full name, part of name, name and place, initials, mr or miss stevenson and everything turned up a blank.

Can anyone shed any light on this as surely one family member must be mentioned somewhere? I really wished I hadnt bought the sub now.

"It's brillant" and "You'll really open up new stories about your rellies" I was told. Pah!

Can anyone give me some advice please on how to search the archive.

Many thanks.
David.

[dawnsh]

Hi David

I supose it depends on what you are looking for: something newsworthy, a birth marriage or death announcement

Are the years of interest online? as this project is still very much a work in progress

Are the areas of interest online? again a work in progress

Can you give us a clue as to what you might be looking for?

Have you tried using the newspaper search engine at FindMyPast for results you can't access and then tried the BNA directly?

 

[Vasquez109]

Thanks for the reply but I dont have a FindMyPast subscription.

Um...Basically Im looking for anything! A little obituary notice or maybe a court summons or anything really I guess.

Not all the years are online, but surely some mention of one out of a hundred or so people might come up with a match. Im just getting a bit frustrated with it all!

Thanks.
David.

[dawnsh]

Hi David

You don't need a sub to search newspapers at FindMyPast, only to see the results.

I haven't found anything (yet) for my lines either, they didn't place family notices, as far as I can tell they weren't criminals or the victims of crime, weren't involved in any scandals.

Just kept their heads down and noses clean.

Frustrating, isn't it.

I do however, use the newspapers to see if I can find out what was going on in the areas at the time though just in case my lot are there just mistranscribed by the OCR process used.

[stanmapstone]

You must be very unlucky, an exact search for Mapstone, not a very common name, gives 8,207 results in England, 33 in Ireland, 25 in Scotland, and 78 in Wales, so was well worth my subscribing.
Although if you are looking for specific individuals then that is a different matter.
Stan

[Vasquez109]

I agree there Stan. But not all 8,207 will be related to you will they? I can find references to the surname Stevenson but a lot of them arent mine!

Maybe the ones that are, I havent managed to find a link to yet!

[Vasquez109]

Just another thing ive noticed with it! Ive loaded an article which says its from:

Sussex Agricultural Express - 30th April 1909
..but when you look at the top of the page, its titled differently. In this case its the:
Sussex Express, Surrey Standard and Kent Mail.

Any reason why the names are mixed up do you think?