THE RYERSON INDEX

to death notices and obituaries in Australian newspapers

NEWSPAPERS WITH PROBLEMS

 
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.


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.)

This page is owned by Ryerson Index Inc, a non-profit organisation incorporated under the laws of New South Wales, Australia. The last update was 20 May 2022.