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THE RYERSON INDEXto death notices and obituaries in Australian newspapers |
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NEWSPAPERS WITH PROBLEMS |
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The current practice of many newspapers is to microfilm their pre-digital issues
and destroy the original hardcopy, because newspapers in quantity can be very
bulky to store.
This is fine when the scanning or filming process works as expected, but occasionally there is a glitch in the system, and the process fails. The usual result of such a failure is the omission of a page or pages from the microfilm or scanned record. If the failure is not picked up immediately and corrected, then there is a very high probability that the original will be destroyed with no copy left available for reference. Microfilming is usually carried out once only, and the resulting film made available to all libraries and other institutions who require a copy. This means that a mistake, once made and left uncorrected, will exist in ALL microfilm copies of the paper. As much of our back-indexing is carried out from filmed or scanned copies, Ryerson is in a position to identify many of these production glitches. In some cases we are unable to do anything about them, but often we are able to track down a hard-copy version of the incorrectly-filmed paper. On this page, you will find details of such errors we have identified, and copies of the notices that we have been able to find to plug the gaps caused by some of these production glitches.
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Sydney Morning Herald | 3 January 1880 | p1 Death Notices | p16 Funeral Notices |   |
Problem: Only pages 7-12 of this issue have been filmed and digitised - the index, death notices and funeral notices are all missing. SLNSW has advised that their hardcopy is damaged, with many pages missing, hence the problem with the digitising.
(image of notices taken from the hardcopy held by State Library of Victoria, October 2018.) |
Sydney Morning Herald | 8 November 1880 | p1 Deaths | p10 Funerals |   |
Problem: The entire paper (issue 13,293) is missing from (a) Trove, (b) the SMH microfilms produced by Pascoe, and (c) the SLNSW hardcopy collection. Fortunately SLVic has a hardcopy version.
(image of notices taken from the hardcopy held by State Library of Victoria, January 2019.) |
Sydney Morning Herald | 17 December 1880 |   |   |   |
Problem: This edition of the SMH contained 10 pages, with the funeral notices appearing on p10. Unfortunately only pages 1-9 were filmed and digitised.
(no copy yet obtained).) |
Sydney Morning Herald | 18 December 1880 |   |   |   |
Problem: Page 1 of this edition, containing the deaths, has not been filmed or digitised.
(no copy yet obtained).) |
Sydney Morning Herald | 30 September 1887 | p12 Funerals |   |   |
Problem: This edition of the SMH contained 12 pages, with the funeral notices appearing on p12. Unfortunately only pages 1-10 were filmed and digitised.
(image of notices taken from the hardcopy held by State Library of NSW, October 2018.) |
Sydney Morning Herald | 1 March 1890 | p22 Notices |   |   |
Problem: This edition of the SMH contained 22 pages, with the funeral notices appearing on p22. Unfortunately only pages 1-20 were filmed and digitised.
(image of notices taken from the hardcopy held by State Library of NSW, October 2018.) |
Sydney Morning Herald | 25 January 1936 | p15 Funerals |   |   |
Problem: The Funeral notices were published on p15, but this page (and only this page, out of 32 pages) has not been digitised in Trove. It is, however, present in the microfilm copy of the paper.
(image of notices taken from the microfilm held by State Library of NSW, December 2018.) |
The Age | 10 June 1946 | p10 Notices |   |   |
Problem: The Death and Funeral notices were published on p10, but pages 10 and 11 are missing from Trove.
(image of notices taken from the hardcopy held by State Library of Victoria, October 2021.) |
Sydney Morning Herald | 13 August 1947 | p26 Notices |   |   |
Problem: Some pages in Trove were scanned from a different edition of the paper.
The Classifieds Index on p10 shows the Birth, Death and Marriage notices as being on p26. However, the page
following p25 is labelled 26* rather than 26, and does not contain any notices. Fortunately Google, which
scanned newspapers from the Fairfax archives rather than the microfilm, has scanned p26 from an earlier edition of
the paper.
(image of notices courtesy of Google Newspapers.) |
The Age | 28 January 1950 | p2 Deaths | p13 Funerals |   |
Problem: This issue of The Age has not been digitised - it is missing from Trove.
(image of notices taken from the hardcopy held by State Library of Victoria, November 2018.) |
The Age | 29 April 1950 | p2 Deaths |   |   |
Problem: The issue available on Trove is missing some notices on page 2 due to a printing flaw.
(image of notices taken from the hardcopy held by State Library of Victoria, January 2019.) |
The Age | 1 May 1950 | p2 Deaths |   |   |
Problem: The issue available on Trove is missing some notices on page 2 due to a printing flaw.
(image of notices taken from the hardcopy held by State Library of Victoria, January 2019.) |
The Age | 19 May 1950 | p2 Deaths |   |   |
Problem: The issue available on Trove is missing five notices at the bottom of p2 col 1, as the result of the corner of the page being torn off.
(image of notices taken from the hardcopy held by State Library of Victoria, February, 2019.) |
The Age | 31 May 1950 | p2 Deaths |   |   |
Problem: The issue available on Trove is missing a number of death notices from p2 cols 1 and 2, due to either a poor quality film being digitised, or a failure during the digitisation process.
(image of notices taken from the hardcopy held by State Library of Victoria, February, 2019.) |
The Age | 7 June 1950 | p2 Deaths |   |   |
Problem: The issue available on Trove is missing a number of death notices from p2 col 1, due to a chunk of the page being removed.
(image of notices taken from the hardcopy held by State Library of Victoria, February, 2019.) |
The Age | 2 September 1950 | p2 Deaths |   |   |
Problem: The issue available on Trove (filmed from the NLA copy) is missing pages 2 and 3. The death notices commence on page 2, and continue on page 13 (which also contains the funeral notices). Page 13 is complete in Trove.
(image of notices taken from the hardcopy held by State Library of Victoria, July, 2019.) |
The Age | 8 September 1950 | p9 Funerals |   |   |
Problem: The issue available on Trove (filmed from the NLA copy) is missing pages 9 and 10. The funeral notices appear on page 9. Death notices (on page 2) are unaffected.
(image of notices taken from the hardcopy held by State Library of Victoria, July, 2019.) |
The Age | 9 September 1950 | p13 Deaths |   |   |
Problem: The issue available on Trove is missing a section of the death notices at the top of page 13, due to either a printing flaw, or a corner torn off.
The copy of page 13 we have obtained is from a bound volume, and the problem area being closest to the binding, it is difficult (but not impossible) to interpret all the notices.
(image of notices taken from the hardcopy held by State Library of Victoria, July, 2019.) |
The Age | 23 October 1950 | p2 Deaths (part) | p7 Deaths (part) and Funerals |   |
Problem: The issue available on Trove is missing a section of the death notices midway down page 2, due to a printing flaw.
(image of notices taken from the hardcopy held by State Library of Victoria, September, 2019.) |
The Age | 22 December 1950 | p2 Deaths (part) |   |   |
Problem: The issue available on Trove is missing a section of the death notices in the bottom corner of page 2, due to a piece being torn off prior to filming.
(image of notices taken from the hardcopy held by State Library of Victoria, February, 2020.) |
The Age | 2 October 1951 |   |   |   |
Problem: During the filming process, a piece of foreign material (paper or similar) has been placed over some of the notices on page 2, obliterating some notices.
(no copy yet obtained. There is a copying cost involved due to the volume not being suitable for photocopying - sponsorship welcome!) |
The Age | 3 October 1951 |   |   |   |
Problem: During the filming process, a piece of foreign material (paper or similar) has been placed over some of the notices on page 2, obliterating some notices.
(no copy yet obtained. There is a copying cost involved due to the volume not being suitable for photocopying - sponsorship welcome!) |
The Age | 28 March 1959 | Scan 1 | Scan 2 | Scan 3 | Scan 4 | Scan 5 | Scan 6 | Scan 7 | Scan 8 | Scan 9 |   |
Problem: This edition of The Age was not microfilmed, nor has it been scanned by Google Newspapers. The images have been obtained by
photographing the bound volume, hence the numerous images to cover the entire broadsheet. (Click once on each image to zoom.)
(image of notices taken from the hardcopy held by State Library of Victoria, March 2019.) |
Sydney Morning Herald | 12 July 1961 | p32 (top) Notices | p32 (bottom) Notices |   |
Problem: This edition of The SMH has not been microfilmed. It is missing from the Pascoe reels,
and also from the digitised issue of the Fairfax Archive on the SLNSW website.
(image of notices taken from the hardcopy held by State Library of NSW, September 2019.) |
The Age | 14 May 1968 | p18 (top) Notices | p18 (bottom) Notices |   |
Problem: This edition of The Age had the death and funeral notices appearing on p18. Unfortunately only pages 1-17 were filmed.
(Note - these are large images (approx 4 Mb) to provide for clarity when zoomed. Please be patient!)
(image of notices taken from the hardcopy held by State Library of Victoria, April 2018.) |
Sydney Morning Herald | 13 December 1968 | p22 Notices |   |   |
Problem: This edition of the SMH contained 22 pages, with the death and funeral notices appearing on p22. Unfortunately only pages 1-21 were filmed.
(image of notices courtesy of the private collection of John Nance.) |
The Age | 29 July 1969 | p17 (left column) Notices | p17 (cols 2-5 top) Notices | p17 (cols 2-5 bottom) Notices |
Problem: This edition of The Age had the death and funeral notices appearing on p17. Unfortunately only pages 1-13 were filmed.
(Note - these are large images (approx 4 Mb) to provide for clarity when zoomed. Please be patient!)
(image of notices taken from the hardcopy held by State Library of Victoria, April 2018.) |
Sydney Morning Herald | 16 April 1970 | p32 Notices (1) | p32 Notices (2) | p32 Notices (3) | p32 Notices (4) | p32 Notices (5) | p32 Notices (6) |
Problem: A large number of pages were missed when this paper was filmed - only the first 16 pages
of the body of the paper, plus 10 pages of the Womens Section, were filmed. The notices were on p32 of the main body of the
paper. The problem with the filming has been carried over to all known digitised versions.
(Note - these are large images (approx 2 Mb) to provide for clarity when zoomed. Please be patient!)
(image of notices taken from the hardcopy held by State Library of NSW, May 2018.) |
Sydney Morning Herald | 7 February 1976 | p120 Notices |   |   |
Problem: This edition of the SMH contained 120 pages, with the death and funeral notices appearing on p120. Unfortunately only pages 1-119 were filmed.
(image of notices taken from the hardcopy held by State Library of NSW.) |
Canberra Times | 2 April 1977 | Notices |   |   |
Problem: This edition of the Canberra Times is missing from both the microfilm and Trove.
(image of notices taken by Lindsay Graham from the hardcopy held by NLA, May 2021.) |
Canberra Times | 9 April 1977 | Notices |   |   |
Problem: This edition of the Canberra Times is missing from both the microfilm and Trove.
(image of notices taken by Lindsay Graham from the hardcopy held by NLA, May 2021.) |
Sydney Morning Herald | 10 October 1981 |   |   |   |
Problem: All known copies (microfilm and online) are missing the final 35 pages, and the death and funeral notices appear on the last page, p140.
(no copy yet obtained.) |
Toowoomba Chronicle | 22 January 2000 | p2 Index | p81 Notices |   |
Problem: Pages 49-88 were omitted from the
microfilm. The death and funeral notices were published on p81. Fortunately, an index of names
from the death and funeral notices was published on p2, and this has enabled us
to confirm the hand-dated photocopy of the notices is definitely from
the incorrectly-filmed issue.
(image of notices courtesy of the Toowoomba and Darling Downs Family History Society.) |
Sydney Morning Herald | 21 March 2009 | Notices |   |   |
Problem: The Fairfax Digital Archive is missing this entire issue - the issue of 21 Feb has been incorrectly inserted in its place.
(image of notices taken from the hardcopy held by State Library of NSW, March 2019.) |