RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Nic. on Friday 11 August 23 18:41 BST (UK)
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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.
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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.
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I was about to suggest the same as Josephine - for me it gave considerably fewer results (but still quite a lot).
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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
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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.
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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
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
You can, I do that on a regular basis.
e.g.to look through the edition of a particular newspaper on a specified date:
leave the Name/keywords fields blank.
Use the filters to specify the newspaper title, and the exact date you want to start at.
Click on any result and use the boxes at the top left of the image screen to get to page 1 of x
and from there you can use the arrows to page through. If you don't find what you want change the date filter to the next day.
Boo
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Going back to the "Albert Prince" question, if you go to the BNA advanced search page: https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/search/advanced
and then enter albert prince in the "exact phrase" field, and check the "exact search" box, that will bring up exact hits. Unfortunately a lot of them are for Albert Prince of Wales.
However you may find something useful. You can download 3 pages for free on that site, or you can note the details and look them up in FindMyPast.
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You can, I do that on a regular basis.
e.g.to look through the edition of a particular newspaper on a specified date:
leave the Name/keywords fields blank.
Use the filters to specify the newspaper title, and the exact date you want to start at.
Click on any result and use the boxes at the top left of the image screen to get to page 1 of x
and from there you can use the arrows to page through. If you don't find what you want change the date filter to the next day.
Boo
Thanks, Boo. I'm familiar with browsing through the pages of one edition, but can I ask for all the pages of, say, The Southern Reporter, then narrow it down to, say, 1876, and browse through whichever editions I want to check for that year? Or do I need to change the date each time?
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Thanks, Boo. I'm familiar with browsing through the pages of one edition, but can I ask for all the pages of, say, The Southern Reporter, then narrow it down to, say, 1876, and browse through whichever editions I want to check for that year? Or do I need to change the date each time?
Well yes you can browse through the editions for any year but to get to each edition you'd need to specify the date published if you just specify a year you get 'results' of all the linked articles for that year which I'd guess would be way too unweildy without a name or keyword
so specify Southern Reporter
Date published as 1876, then month as Jan
its a weekly publication so choose 1-7 Jan and look through the edition of 6th Jan
Click on date published again, choose the Back option and pick the next week rinse and repeat till you have either found what you want or your eyes feel like they will never uncross again
It may be clunky and not be the most user friendly but it is available, and from what you say the competition doesn't have the breadth of coverage this one does.
Boo
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I regularly search for death notices in Co Antrim papers especially the daily Belfast Telegraph, News-Letter & Northern Whig due to the OCR missing many name entries, surnames starting Mc or M' especially troublesome. I often know the/several exact death dates from the GRONI death index, just not if is the right John Smith. So input keyword 'funeral' and open the 1,2, or 3 papers available for death day to death+2 and read the pages. Yes have to change the date but will sometimes sort the week chronogically and right click 4 or 5 opening in new windows. Doing similar on a thumbnail display is more logical but then have to move to page 2 or 3 to find the deaths column so overall perhaps not much difference to the clunky method.
They do have Collection option currently just British or Irish, would be simple to add a Scottish tick box. Not sure an English Collection option would be useful as would likely then add a specific County anyway.
Currently the International papers eg New Zealand, India, Ontario, Caribbean are counties in the British collection.
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Thank you, Boo & Jon_ni!
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Josephine
They appear to have implemented the changes as there is now a thumbnail viewer and the screen and link format differ. However on my 1st search today it only opened for 1 result, the rest open as blank black images - useless.
There is another thread on the go https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=875688.0