RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: GillianF on Wednesday 07 August 24 17:30 BST (UK)
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I have never used the newspaper archives so need a little help, advice.
My brother-in-law recently told me that his mother showed him an obituary in the Daily Telegraph of a man who had died. The photo referred to him as a Flight Lieutenant ??? (no name remembered) who had just died and I assume he was of some importance. The photo of him in The Daily Telegraph showed the deceased and standing next to him was my father-in-law as a very young man. The photo was taken in Tenby and probably late 1942 onwards. The Flight Lieutenant was said to be a Seaplane Pilot, my father-in-law was in the RAF Marine Division in Tenby in his earliest service days. My brother-in-law thinks the newspaper article his mother showed him would have been shortly before her death but possibly in a window of September 2007 - October 2010. It would be lovely to find the article and the photo of my father-in-law as a very young man.
How would I search for this and any clues as to success to find it?
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Newspapers.com
https://www.newspapers.com/paper/the-daily-telegraph/27837/?locale=en-GB
It will be difficult to search for it without a name though.
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Thank you for the link. I will take a look but I do appreciate it will be tricky with no name and quite a wide timescale.
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Have you tried AI on the picture. I am amazed at what just Google Lens on my phone will recognise in terms of "public" photos. If its a photo that is online somewhere, even behind a paywall, it might well recognise the picture. Its easy to try too.
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Sorry, if I wasn’t clear. It is the photo that was with the obituary I am looking for because it had my father-in-law as a young, new recruit in it which my husband and brother-in-law want to see. Father-in-law joined up 15.12.1942 and was in Tenby. The obituary with the photo showed the deceased as a Flight Lieutenant but I imagine he went on to greater things to have an obituary with photo but we have no name. I have looked at my father-in-law’s military records but no CO mentioned anywhere.
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Doh!!
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I use Gale Primary Sources which includes British Library Newspapers. I access from home for free using my Australian National Library card - lots of other libraries around the globe have similar arrangements.
Using "flight lieutenant" as a keyword search and limiting to the Daily Telegraph between 2007 and 2011, there are 100 hits, many of them obituaries - not impossible to look through those to see if you can find the photo you are after.
(adding "tenby" doesn't come up with any hits for me.)
For example - "Flight Lieutenant Tom Fletcher" , air sea rescue pilot, obituary on 1 April 2010. There are 3 photographs including one of him and "his crew".
(The same obituary appears here - unfortunately there is only one photo, not the one with his crew.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/7542216/Flight-Lieutenant-Tom-Fletcher.html )
Modified:
Here's the 3 photos.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/incoming/gallery/raf-hero-who-saved-downed-786867
Of course this is meant just as an example - not suggesting this is "your" photo.
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Interesting story. My husband, brother-in-law and I have all looked at the photo and thought the man on the right of the third photo could be their father but further research into Flight Lt. Tom Fletcher on a website of 'Aircrew Remembered' suggests Tom is the main standing on the right on the wheel of the plane and not father-in-law.
My brother-in-law thinks/remembers his father was standing on the wing of an airplane on the water. I can't access the website you have used as I am in France and the library doesn't offer such a service.
Would it be too much to ask you to have another look? Please!! I will be ever so grateful .............
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Yes, Tom FLETCHER definitely looks like the man on the wheel.
No problem. Will have another look. I'll send you a pm if I find anything that looks possible. :D
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Wonderful. That's really kind of you and much appreciated.
Gillian