Newspaper search

[Nic.]

I’m attempting to search newspapers on Find My Past.

Unfortunately the surname involved is Prince. 

Even though I’m putting in Albert Prince I’m getting all results for Prince Albert rather than those with the surname Prince.  As you can imagine there’s a lot of them.

Is there anyway of excluding them? Or making it search the name more accurately?

Many thanks in advance for any help.

[Josephine]

Have you tried doing a keyword search with the words "Albert Prince" in quotation marks?

BTW, I hate their new search engine interface. I think it's terrible.

[arthurk]

I was about to suggest the same as Josephine - for me it gave considerably fewer results (but still quite a lot).

[Jon_ni]

recent blog article https://www.findmypast.co.uk/blog/help/newspaper-search-tips

and there may be some changes soon http://scottishgenes.blogspot.com/2023/07/new-newspaper-viewer-coming-soon-to.html

[Josephine]

That's good news, Jon_ni. I really hope the next set of changes improves their system because it's terrible now.

It would be helpful if we could narrow a search down by country and also if we could browse newspapers by title.

[Tickettyboo]

That's good news, Jon_ni. I really hope the next set of changes improves their system because it's terrible now.

It would be helpful if we could narrow a search down by country and also if we could browse newspapers by title.

The filters on the current FindMyPast newspaper search do allow you to narrow searches down by time frame (down to the specific date of publication), by County of publication, by place of publication and by newspaper title.


What neither the BNA or FindMyPast can offer is a way around the dire results of the OCR which often falls down due to the quality (or lack thereof) of the scan.

I believe that the BNA do offer a facility to correct the interpretations of the OCR, but FindMyPast do not.

Though I always do send in error reports for 'any' mistranscription , on any site, I am getting a tad fed up of FindMyPast charging an arm and a leg for a sub and then relying on paying customers to sort out their database to some sort of useable basis.

Just checked, in the last 4 weeks I have 78 emails from FindMyPast acknowledging receipt of transcription errors!

Boo

[hanes teulu]

That's good news, Jon_ni. I really hope the next set of changes improves their system because it's terrible now.

It would be helpful if we could narrow a search down by country and also if we could browse newspapers by title.

The filters on the current FindMyPast newspaper search do allow you to narrow searches down by time frame (down to the specific date of publication), by County of publication, by place of publication and by newspaper title.


What neither the BNA or FindMyPast can offer is a way around the dire results of the OCR which often falls down due to the quality (or lack thereof) of the scan.

I believe that the BNA do offer a facility to correct the interpretations of the OCR, but FindMyPast do not.

Though I always do send in error reports for 'any' mistranscription , on any site, I am getting a tad fed up of FindMyPast charging an arm and a leg for a sub and then relying on paying customers to sort out their database to some sort of useable basis.

Just checked, in the last 4 weeks I have 78 emails from FindMyPast acknowledging receipt of transcription errors!

Boo

Isn't it the quality of what's being scanned that determines the result, not the scan itself?

[Stanwix England]

I search directly through BNA, so I maybe don't see the same options as you do.

On my screen there are a few boxes. One says "use exact phrase". Under that, there is a box I can tick which says "Exact search (e.g. search for "fish" and not "fishing" or "fished")"

By choosing both these options, I do get many that are for Albert Prince, and not Albert, Prince although it's not perfect. Can you do that on FindMyPast?

If not, is there anything specific that you are looking for, I wouldn't mind looking for you.

[Josephine]

The filters on the current FindMyPast newspaper search do allow you to narrow searches down by time frame (down to the specific date of publication), by County of publication, by place of publication and by newspaper title.

Yes, but it would be better if I could check a box saying "Scotland" rather than only being able to choose a county or city/town in Scotland, for example.

It would also be better if I could browse through the pages of a newspaper (as I can on some other newspaper archive sites), because sometimes the search engine doesn't pick up on any of my search words but I can still manage to find an article or BMD notice if I go to a newspaper and browse through the pages, starting approximately when I think the item might have been published.

Of the newspaper archives I've subscribed to, I much prefer the set-up of Newspapers.com, but they mostly have North American titles.