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West Briton Newspaper
TRANSCRIPTIONS OF THE ORIGINAL
NEWSPAPER, 1836 - 1887
A Project created
by Julia Symons Mosman and Rita Bone Kopp
Transcripts of Births, Marriages,
and Deaths - as well as Fairs, Fishery reports, Court reports, separation
notices, absconded apprentices, Coroner's Inquests, etc., all under "News"
- are available by using our search engine, or accessing the year you
choose, below.
Also ACTUAL
SAMPLES of West Britan pages, including bad pages (give them a look,
and try your hand at transcribing them), advertisements, and poetry THESAURUS
- old terminology you'll find in our transcriptions, as well as explanations of various subjects such as jury requirements and poor laws
Also available, Snippets
from various dates and newspapers in several countries, involving Cornwall
and the Cornish, by LaVelda Faull
_______________________________________________________________________
Please be aware these transcriptions have also been shared with the Cornish and Cornish-Gen mailing lists at Rootsweb. Many caused discussion and further research; therefore, one might want to look at the list Archives (for Free, of course) to see if there was any potentially useful discussion on newspaper topics of interest to you.
(https://lists.rootsweb.com/hyperkitty/cgi-bin/search )
As of March 6, 2011, there were 37,551,432 messages in the Cornish-Gen Archive alone - so be sure to use 'filtering' terminology in your search.
Our project was started by Rita Bone Kopp and Julia Symons Mosman in
2003, as a way to enable people to share a glimpse at the lives their
families led. At first, we started with Rita transcribing 1887 - which
had several issues each week - and Julia transcribing 1836-39. These
transcriptions were posted to the Rootsweb Cornish Lists. We decided
to retain the transcriptions on this website, too. In 2005, Isabel Harris
and Bill Kemp joined us in the work. Isabel transcribed 1850, 1853,
and 1854, while Bill took on 6 months of BMDs for each year. Since the
completion of the 1887 issues, we've all been working on the same year. In December, 2007, we asked for volunteers to help us transcribe
more of the news; the generous people shown as "additional transcribers" responded, and have been participating enthusiastically ever since.
We are not part of any other group, or organization. We're completely independent, merely sharing our love of History and Genealogy with as many people as possible..
As we add to our data base
each week, we hope you stop back frequently.
........................................................................................................................
- You will leave this
site by clicking on the links below - please be sure to stop back.
For
further information on all newspapers of Cornwall, please click here,
then scroll down to ""newspapers and periodicals". While
this site has information on various research resources, some are not
quite up-to-date, nor is the list complete. To help your search, we recommend
you -
Isabel Harris
Lorena Loubsky
Julia Symons Mosman
..................................
additional transcriptions by:
Allison Ashton
Maureen Chambers
Bill Curnow
Bern Currie
Graeme & Sue Dawson
Philip Green
Maurine Nuttall
...................................
Webmaster, and former Transcriber,
Rita Bone Kopp
We transcribe each newspaper as it is, with mis-spellings, unique
sentence structures, etc. Many of the originals are wrinkled, torn,
or blotted, making it difficult. When we've been forced to "guess"
or paraphrase a word or item, we encase it in [...]. All parentheses
appeared in the original paper.
While we try to be accurate, we know there are errors.
Some corrections have been posted to the searchable Rootsweb archives
by active genealogists, which might help researchers.
We use images from micro-films purchased by the St. Piran Society,
held by the University of St. Thomas, as our source material. We
thank them, for without these resources, we wouln't be able to do
this work..
_____________________________
The West Briton, a Liberal newspaper, was started in 1810 by 10
gentlemen. Between the years 1836-1855, it was published by Mrs.
Elizabeth Heard, widow, 32 Boscawen-Street, Truro; afterwards, it
was published by her son..
Each page was 6 columns wide, and each issue included Domestic
News, International News, Parliament, Ireland, Shipping, Mining,
and Poetry, as well as Advertisements. We concentrate on Local Intellegence,
and all Court cases, highlighting 'ordinary people" whenever
possible. We have eliminated long political meetings, pages of Agricultural
Society meetings, etc.
The West Briton maintained an 'edge' on the competition; it had
twice rhe circulation as their next nearest competitor during these
years. It is still published today.
Perhaps this is why more information was not listed
in the Birth, Marriages, and Deaths section of the newspaper. "Simple
announcements of Births, Marriages, or Deaths, forwarded by subscribers,
are inserted gratis. When 'No Cards,' or anything else beyond the
simple announcement, is added the charge is at the rate of 6d. for
every 10 words, the minimun charge being (1s?), and postage stamps
must accompany the order. No announcements will be inserted unless
duly authenticated either by the name and address of the sender
or by one of our regular agents."
