History & Methodology of the Project
The editor writes:
For the many individuals searching historic Bath newspapers, it
seemed useful to provide a database with abstracts which were
referenced and indexed. The general value of such projects was
illustrated when the organiser used such a database of the death
notices in a Fifeshire local newspaper to acquire previously
unobtainable information about an ancestor. Finally, it is
suggested that those searching historic newspapers should endeavour
to do this in a structured way and make their records available to
and retrievable by others.
Originally, before the project started in November 2002, it was
hoped to use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to scan the Bath
Chronicles. At that time this did not seem feasible, particularly
in view of the likely cost, and the state of the technology:
some of the original records (the film more than original
newspapers) are indistinct, spotted, incomplete or otherwise hard
to read even by experienced humans, and it was felt that this would
frustrate comprehensive and effective OCR scanning. The
volunteers were assembled and abstracting started in December
2003.
Source material
The bound copies and/or the microfilms, of the weekly Bath
Chronicle for the years 1770 to 1800 (both available in Bath
Central Library) are being used.
The choice of this paper is based on
1) continuity - it is the only Bath newspaper still
published, and there are fewer issues missing than for the Bath
Journal;
2) utility - in research publications, the Bath
Chronicle appeared to be cited more frequently than the other local
Bath newspapers; &
3) content - the relatively high level of notices &
advertisements provide an important source of local news and of
information on trades & occupations, properties etc.
Top of page
Methods
1) The first stage is to abstract items about people, places,
services & local events in Bath (& the surrounding area).
For ease of handling, abstracts are usually up to 40 words long
(though the public database allows & does contain some longer
abstracts). Long items may be divided over several sequential
abstracts e.g. the celebrations in Bath after Nelson’s Victory on
the Nile, lists of game certificates held in the County, or local
property sales with numerous lots.
2) These abstracts are then transcribed into an electronic
format with a standard layout and assembled by the Editor into an
MS Works database. Here, they are numbered sequentially, referenced
(by issue date, page number and column), and then simply indexed.
Particular abstracts are marked for checking by the original
abstractor, or for the Editor to review later.
3) For each issue, a hard copy printout from the database of the
abstract text & reference is supplied to the abstractor for
checking.
4) At a later stage the abstracts are checked independently for
accuracy, inclusiveness, duplications, amended where
appropriate and generally proof-read. The abstracts are then
finally numbered, and the year sent for incorporation into the
public MS Access database.
Indexing
In the Editor’s original MS Works database, the index terms are
either shown as Keywords in the main abstract text, or as simple
one or two letter codes in two additional fields for indexing.
These additional fields are hidden in the public MS Access
database, where all 36 standardised indexing terms are combined in
pull-down menus. These index terms use contemporary words and are
in addition to the facility for searching on any word or fragment,
if necessary using “wild cards”.
Top of page
Content
Apart from the basic facts, abstracts are intended to have
sufficient extra detail to make them useful & interesting, e.g.
day or date, place, occupations, titles/ranks, rents & price
etc. In many instances, the abstracts “stand-alone” and have
sufficient information to avoid users having to routinely refer to
the original newspapers.
Scope
With so much potential material, some restrictions are
unavoidable, indeed essential. Crucially, we try to include a) all
places within 5 miles of Bath, b) most of the places within 10
miles, and c) then other major places (except Bristol) up to 15
miles away. Since Bath is situated in north-east Somerset and is
close to the counties of Wiltshire & Gloucestershire,
this is reflected in the abstracts. Places include Bradford on
Avon, Chippenham, Chipping Sodbury, Frome, Melksham, Newton (St
Loe), Norton St Philip; Radstock, Rode (Somerset), South Stoke,
Trowbridge etc. We also include Devizes because it was on a main
coaching route. Places outside these areas are included when they
contain important or topical information e.g. the price of wheat
& other commodities & meat; or national events with
significant local implications.
However, the inclusion of routine advertisements for
nationally-available health & cosmetic products and for books
is generally discouraged, except where they contain useful
information on local suppliers or authors.
Top of page
Conventions
Personal names are spelt as in the original newspaper (though
with the modern s instead of the archaic f ). Prefixes and suffixes
of social rank or title are included. Occupations, place names and
street names are spelt in the modern way.
Cautions
1) Caution is needed in calculating actual numerical dates of
Marriages & Deaths when they are not given in the original
paper. This is because "yesterday" in the column for Bath News on
page 3, presumably means the day before the column was
finalised i.e. the Tuesday (and not the day before the paper
was issued, Wednesday). For this reason, the words of the original
paper are often used in the abstract.
2) The word se’nnight (often mistakenly read as
fe'nnight) is an archaic form of seven nights, or a week, and is
NOT a fortnight.
Dr Donald Straughan
