More good news has been announced from the Ancestry.co.uk newsroom for those with Fife roots...
A CENTURY OF SCOTTISH SOCIAL HISTORY LAUNCHES ONLINE - DUMFERMLINE JOURNAL
Scots can now tap into nearly a century of local history with the online launch by Ancestry.co.uk of the Dunfermline Journal Collection, 1851-1931.
Articles digitised from millions of pages of Dunfermline’s oldest newspaper will allow family history researchers to delve into the history of the area at the touch of a button. The collection consists of more than 45,000 quality images digitised from the newspaper’s long history and dating from 1851 to 1931.
The result is a collection rich with details of births, deaths, retirals, wedding anniversaries, personal achievements and personal tragedies, as well as a wealth of information on historical events, probate and legal notices, business advertisements and local news.
Historical events of note include the death of Dunfermline’s most famous resident, industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie in 1919, whose legacy lives on in the town at Carnegie Hall and the Carnegie Birthplace museum.
The journal also closely reports major events in the history of local team Dunfermline FC, from it’s founding in 1874 to the historic 1910/11 season when Dunfermline won both the Fife cup and the Scottish League.
Users can search the collection by date and edition and browse selected articles that appear across the century, opening up a wealth of local history. It will also help family history researchers to track down individuals whose names have made the papers, and provide crucial details of the life and times of many local residents.
The collection follows the launch in recent months of the Perth & Fife Newspaper Index cards, which provide further detail on news and historical events across the county, offering Scots a unique opportunity to research their origins.
Ancestry.co.uk Managing Director Simon Harper comments: “Newspapers contain a vast wealth of information, with many details not found in official records. This collection is a great resource for anyone with a connection to Dunfermline and Ancestry.co.uk is delighted to be able to offer Scottish history enthusiasts online access to it in order to preserve the stories behind the town for generations to come.
NB: It should be noted that the coverage for the Journal is incomplete, with the years 1863-1871, 1890, 1916 and 1922 not included in this release, and that the papers are searchable only by date.
Ancestry's online newspaper indexes for Fife does not cover the Journal, but is a useful starting point, should events have also been covered in other areas of the county.
Chris
Yes this resource is fabulous, but many of the image pages are blurred and very difficult to read. Whether this is due to faulty digital photographing or deterioration of the fiche or actual newspaper (depending on what was digitised) I don't know, but it does make the resource less useful.
ReplyDeleteThanks anon, useful to know!
ReplyDeleteChris