William BURGUM Sheep Rustler c March 1800 (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Wednesday, August 22, 2012, 18:05 (4479 days ago) @ Roger Griffiths

Hi Doug,
Yes you're right re searching Newspaper Archives, you might like to consider signing-up for the apparently excellent British Newspaper Archive site that "opened" this year. I've yet to subscribe but will do, there's a wealth of great info there and more being added all the time. However please be warned it's own search engine needs "driving with care" if the relevant hits are to be found.
The free search lets you find snippets of articles, you then pay to download it.
Using that search I think this must be your man ?;

article from Hereford Journal of Wednesday 19th March 1800 mentions "WilTunn Burgum, and Daniel Foivell, lor Iheep-ltealing"

As you can see, the search engine sometimes has difficulty with the older fonts !

http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/search/results?basicsearch=burgum%20assizes&am...

Apologies for slow reply, earlier I failed to find this, possibly as I made the mistake of including the word Assizes in the search "box" or more likely just spelt Burgam wrong !; I think the searches look for almost adjacent words in the original text, this site's search engine is definitely a good example of "more is less". Fortunately the surnames not common, if it had been my Jones' for example I'd have set the site's filters by "County" and probably "newspaper" and "date" too, and set for only "news" and not "adverts" etc. My experiences has shown the Hereford newspapers often find Forest items as well as the Gloster papers, and particularly those from an earlier date such as this.

Prior thread which should help re using this website
http://www.forum.forest-of-dean.net/index.php?id=34654

Re the BNA website, this page lists all the Newspapers in the site's archive and the dates covered, so for us the local papers are currently
Gloucester Citizen 1877 - 1927
Gloucester Journal 1940 - 1949
Hereford Journal 1781 - 1867
Hereford Times 1832 - 1934

plus the likes of the
Bristol Mercury 1716 - 1900
Western Daily Press 1858 - 1949

And of course the bigger nationals for really major events such as murders etc.
Carefull searching will often find mentions of one's ancestors, particularly if they played sport or were occasional(or even regular!) visitors to court even for apparently trivial offences, such as stealing acorns...!
http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/home/NewspaperTitles