I'm grateful to Stephen Dunn for contacting me to suggest an alternative way to search the free Google newspapers archive, which includes 20th century copies of the Glasgow Herald, Glasgow's Evening Times, and Glasgow's The Bulletin and Scots Pictorial.
In the past, the way to find the search box for a title was to locate the relevant paper in the main list of titles at https://news.google.com/newspapers, and on the screen returned, to then use the search box found at the top - except Google discontinued the functionality on this many years back. Even when it was working, it was virtually impossible to perform a search, as Google searches rarely returned what you were actually seeking. Fortunately, browsing the content was an alternative, basically looking at the content the old fashioned way, a page at a time for any particular edition.
It is possible (and I'm not sure how long this has been enabled) to carry out searches in Newspapers using the Google Books page at https://books.google.co.uk, albeit it is a little awkward. I'll comment on my own success rate with this in a moment, but let's start with how you do it first. The Google Books home page allows you to basically search for words, but with no other way to control the search, so simply put in a term and search for it - in this case, I'll put in the name Paton.
You then get a list of returns from things that Google Books has found within, well, Google Books. But now a series of filters appears under the search box at the top of the screen, so what you will want to do now is click on Tools, at which point three drop down menus appear - go to the second of these, titled Any documents, and select the option in this marked Newspapers. Now the results will appear as found within Google's digitised newspapers collection.
You can now refine searches or carry out entirely new searches using the search box at the top of the page - so, for example, if I put in the surname Morrow AND "222 Dunn Street", I get the following:
Which, when I click on the link, gives me the death notice of the brother of my three times great uncle James Morrrow, who died in Bridgeton in 1951.
So that's great, a chance to search the Google newspaper offerings! Well sadly, not exactly...
It just so happens that my Paton family, and other family lines, lived in Glasgow for much of the period covered by the Google offerings, and that having previously scoured the titles at the Mitchell Library the old fashioned way, using microfilms and original volumes, I have found dozens of newspaper intimations and stories from these three titles, especially the Evening Times. The example I have shown above is one of only three that I have so far been able to find using the Google search mechanism - and the reason for this poor success rate is easily visible in the search return for James Morrow above, and the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) text beneath the link, which states
As you can see, much of it is gibberish, and this is what Google is searching, not the text on the images itself. The OCR has not been re-done - maybe it will one day, now that AI is on the scene - but it has not been sorted again yet. So whilst the search mechanism is a bit of an improvement (albeit convoluted!), I think you may still be far more successful if browsing the offerings available, as I noted above, doing it the good old fashioned way. Within the time periods available, I have found digital copies of all the records that I had previously found in the Mitchell Library, but only through browsing to the correct editions.
The content is free, and you can access the entire newspaper collection at https://news.google.com/newspapers.
To browse individual titles, visit via the following links:
Glasgow Herald (1806-1990) https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=GGgVawPscysC
Evening Times (predominantly 1951-1990) https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2mus-XyGPC0C
The Bulletin and Scots Pictorial (1957) https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=A_xf8jiGkywC
The Bulletin and Scots Pictorial (1951-1960) https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=FS78WRl2AkQC&dat=19591120&b_mode=2
You'll note there are two links here for the Bulletin - the first is that as given on the main listings page, which bizarrely only links to a few editions from 1957 - the second is one that I discovered a few years back that has a much larger run from 1951-1960.
Finally, all of this flags up something else I have raised on many occasions before - the poor level of service that 20th century Glasgow has from the British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk). Considering it is Scotland's largst city, it is to be hoped that FindmyPast turns its attention to 20th century Glasgow soon, as it remains a huge hole in the current offerings.
(With thanks to Stephen Dunn)
Chris
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