One of our favourite moments from the recent WDYTYA? Live show, was when the image of an ancestor suddenly appeared at the top of the search results page. A lady called Marion asked us if we could do a search on the BNA for her gg-grandfather, James Clarke. So we entered ‘james clarke’ into the Phrase Search box on the Advanced Search page and, ‘Eureka!, there was a sketch (from ‘The Graphic’ newspaper of 1888)of Marion’s gg-grandfather sitting at the …

We’re slowly recovering from attending WDYTYA? Live. A big thank you to everyone who dropped in on the BNA stand during the show – it was great to hear your stories and to help you with your ancestral and/or historical research. As we’ve had a fair few folk asking about the BNA wallpaper, we thought we’d post some images from the show on the blog. Amy and Grant.            

We’re very much looking forward to attending the Who Do You Think You Are? Live’ show, which takes place at Olympia, London, from Friday 22 to Sunday 24 February 2013. Inspired by the muse of ‘newspaper taxis’, we’re planning to have a wallpaper made out of newspapers at this year’s show. We’ve seen the drafts of this wallpaper collage and, well, tis a thing of rare beauty – we can’t wait to see the full size version of it! And …

We’re delighted to announce that the BNA Team will be attending ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ Live 2013 at Olympia, London, from Thursday 22nd to Sunday 24th February. We had a grand time meeting folk at WDYTYA? Live last year, so are looking forward to meeting more BNA visitors (and also some old acquaintances, we hope) at this year’s show. As happened last time round, the aim is to help with look-ups on the website, listen to feedback and …

The British Newspaper Archive will be attending ‘Who Do You Think You Are? Live’ at Olympia, London, from Friday 22 to Sunday 24 February 2013. As happened last year, we’ll be dressing up in our Victorian newsboy/girl outfits and will have our trusty (and updated!) newspaper hand-out with us. We’ll be posting more info about the show nearer the time. To find out more about the show, visit the WDYTYA Live website.  

We’ve received a fair few requests from many of you who would like to read the newspaper hand-out that we gave away at ‘Who Do You Think You Are? Live’. To download a copy of this Victorian-style newspaper, (PDF, 3MB), click on the link below: http://fh1-fmp-wp01.dun.fh/newsletter/images/wdytya-handout-2012.pdf

Leap Day Stories To celebrate Leap Day (or ‘intercalary day’ or ‘Job’s Birthday’, as it’s also known), we’ve been looking through the newspaper archive to read about some of customs that are/were traditionally observed on this day. Perhaps the most famous Leap Day tradition is that of ‘The Ladies’ Privilege’. Similar to ‘Sadie Hawkins’ Day’, this is the special day on which women can try to finally put an end to his chronic commitment-phobia. But if the answer is ‘nay’ …

To mark St Valentine‘s Day, we thought we‘d post some historical newspaper stories on our Facebook page about how the Eve of the Lupercalia (aka the 14th of February) was celebrated in the 19th Century.   Valentine Days in the 19th Century It‘s fascinating to see how the tradition of sending valentines ebbed and flowed during the 19th Century. Just by doing simple searches for ’valentines‘ and ’valentine cards‘ in the archive, it‘s possible to see the boom years when almost …