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As part of our celebration of Pride Month, we are delighted to welcome a very special guest post from Vicky Iglikowski-Broad, who works as the Principal Diverse Histories Records Specialist at The National Archives. In this blog, Vicky Iglikowski-Broad explores one of the latest specialist titles to be added to the British Newspaper Archive, namely Link. Read on to discover more.Register now and explore The ArchiveAmongst the myriad of publications that developed in the early 20th century was…

Using newspapers for your Scottish genealogy researchDo you find yourself daunted at the prospect of researching your Scottish ancestors? Keep the heid! There exists a fantastic array of records that can get you further along in your family history research. The main problem, however, is access. Much of what exists has not been ditigised, and for those that have been, many are not indexed. It is overwhelming figuring out where to search and what records, if they were created,…

With Halloween approaching, we wanted to see what we could find related to the topic of hauntings in The British Newspaper Archive.Of children and hauntingsOften the origins of a haunting myth are rooted in death and loss. Sometimes the myth grows and morphs to such a point where its origin is indeterminate. Other times, the sad truth of its origin is unexpectedly revealed, as with the ‘grim discovery’ at a ‘haunted house’ in 1921, reported in The Scotsman.This…

Whilst Mothering Sunday is now commonly combined and celebrated with the secular holiday of Mother’s Day in the United Kingdom and Ireland, its origin is religious in nature and separate from that of the American Mother’s Day.Starting in the 1700s, individuals would attend a special service on Laetare Sunday (the fourth Sunday of Lent) at their mother church (usually the church where an individual was baptised or their local parish church/closest cathedral). This activity was soon coined as going…

‘The awful catastrophe which occurred at the Tay Bridge on the last Sunday of the year is still the all-absorbing theme of conversation in the community…’A section of the Tay Bridge, which connects Dundee and Wormit in Fife, collapsed during a terrible storm on the night of 28 December 1879.  Tragically, a Dundee-bound train plunged into the freezing waters of the river, with the loss of 60 lives (although some estimate the loss to have been 75 lives).Graphic illustrated the scenes of…

Annie Oakley (aka Phoebe Ann Moses), the sharpshooter who found fame in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, died in North Star, Ohio, on 3 November 1926 – she was 66.  Oakley was a champion rifle, wing, and trick shot.  She received international fame.  On one occasion, when Annie was in London,‘five monarchs were present, and one of them, a man who was afterwards to rule as Wilhelm II of Germany, expressed a desire to have the ash removed from his cigar by a…

‘Errand boy who became a millionaire’Sir Thomas Johnstone Lipton, the Glasgow-born self-made man who worked himself up from errand boy to become a millionaire, died in London on 2 October 1931 – he was 81.Below is a newspaper report (published the day after his death) that offers an overview of Lipton’s amazing life and achievements.This image of Sir Lipton, shows him in the uniform of the City Lieutenancy.Discover more about Sir Lipton…