Monday 26 May 2014

FindMyPast Newspaper stories ready for download

http://www.awin1.com/cread.php?s=418441&v=2114&q=199999&r=123532
In the course of trying to put right some of the pretty disastrous changes made to its database, FindMyPast has introduced a long-awaited feature: the facility to download (for keeps or printing) pages from its British & Irish Newspaper Collection.

I'm delighted with this. The download arrives as a pdf which means you can zoom in on the columns you want to read. It's long been a bug-bear of mine that I couldn't do this, so I'm really happy to defy the baying crowd and give the FMP techies a bit of applause.

This little discovery led to another when I went wading in to look for any report of the 1868 drowning of one of my Santrys – Cornelius – and his wife, Anne, in Dungarvan Harbour. I've had the death certificates for years. They show the coroner recorded verdicts of accidental drowning of the 33-year-old coastguard, but I'd never had any joy in locating more information. And yet this time, there it was, a Freeman's Journal report telling that the two, just two years married, took off to Dungarvan with one of Cornelius's colleagues, a chap called Atheson, who also died.

Here's the report. It doesn't give a lot of detail, but enough to satisfy my curiosity.