Hints re British Newspaper Archives website. (General)

by SUE LAWTON , Tuesday, May 08, 2012, 09:40 (4578 days ago) @ Jefff

Having been trawling the BNA for a few months now, I find a good tip is, if searching for an individual, to use first name initials or abbreviations eg. looking for James Laughton, try "J Laughton" or "Jas. Laughton". Maybe it was space or price of ink, but they certainly did like initials and abbreviations!This might help you to cut down the options, rather than just trying eg.Laughton, and will bring up different hits to "James Laughton", because of the way it's been scanned.Don't forget to use the advanced search for more than one word.Obviously the same applies to other common names, eg Chas. Geo. etc.

Also I have found quite a bit in other counties (notably Worcestershire), pertaining to Herefordshire, so do consider bordering counties too.These newspapers seem to have covered quite an area.If the event was scandalous, gory etc it may be covered in many parts of the country,so if you have hit upon a murder or similar, you might find extra details published anywhere, so worth following through.