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Archiver > Scotch-Irish > 1999-09 > 0937081010


From: linda Merle <>
Subject: Fwd: Belfast Newsletter
Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 13:16:50 -0700


Hi Folks, by chance I found this website the other day. It is an academic
website and not set up to be used by folk who do not know what SQL is
and are not doing academic research. However, maybe it will help
someone. I beleive this newspaper is microfilmed at the Linen Hall Library
in Belfast. Perhaps PRONI Has a copy. I know of no where in the USA to
get ahold of the microfilm. If anyone knows, tell us all.

The website explains:

"The Belfast Newsletter, an Irish newspaper that began publication in Belfast in 1737 and continues in business until this day, has good claim to being the oldest continually-published English-language newspaper. This is the first such index to be completed for an Irish newspaper. The Belfast Newsletter was published thrice-weekly during the 18th century, in issues of four pages each. During its time, the
Newsletter was seldom equalled in the breadth and quality of its coverage of local and international events.

"Every significant word and date in the 20,000 surviving pages of the newspaper was indexed, but not all of the newspapers are still available. In fact, only about one-quarter of the newspapers for the years from 1737 to 1750 have survived, although the run of newspapers is nearly complete from 1750 through 1800
(Click here for a list of surviving newspapers). The final database of information contains nearly 300,000 items of news and advertisements. "

The significance is that often ships bound for America advertised. Also when
immigrants arrived, they would publish a joint letter saying they had arrived
and attaching their names. This served as advertisement for the ships too.
You can also get this info in Northern Ireland at the Ulster American Folk
Park, which has a database of emmigrants letters and such.

http://www.ucs.usl.edu/bnl/

Extant Issues of The Belfast Newsletter, 1737-1800
*1737 Newspaper established ca. 1 September. No extant issue (0)
*1738 First surviving issue: 3 October 1738. A few other issues survive
*1739-1745 0
*1746 and 1747 A few
*1748 0
*1749 A few
*1750 Nearly complete
*1751 0
*1752 Nearly complete
*1753 Very Few
*1754-1800 Virtually Complete

Please don't drive the guy who set it up crazy with questions or he might
take it off the internet. I sent him an email requesting information about
where we could get the film in the USA (Canada, Australia, etc <grin>).

This stuff was the basis of a some of Dickson's research in "Ulster Emigration
to Colonial America 1718-1775".

At least it will let you compose a list of issues and microfilm rolls that y ou
would want to review on your Belfast genealogy vacation.

Linda Merle

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