Tuesday 15 April 2014

Trove Tuesday: Auld Ebenezer Kirk

It has been a while since my last post as my wife and I have had a trip to the UK and been busy with coding, redesign and relaunch of the Claim a Convict website. To add to this we have started up a transcription project for the Claim a Convict website so that we can add new convicts to the site.

...plus in what spare time I have, I have been playing around with the Trove API.

Trove API

The Hawkesbury Library Service undertook a two year digitisation project of the Hawkesbury newspapers in conjunction with the National Library of Australia. Completed in 2011, these wonderful resources can now be searched as part of the Trove Digitised Newspapers.

The newspapers digitised by the Hawkesbury Library Service include the following titles:

  • Australian, Windsor, Richmond & Hawkesbury Advertiser 1873 - 1899
  • Hawkesbury Advocate 1899 - 1900
  • Hawkesbury Chronicle & Farmers Advocate 1881 - 1888
  • Hawkesbury Courier & Agricultural & General Advertiser 1881 - 1888
  • Hawkesbury Herald 1902 - 1945
  • Windsor & Richmond Gazette 1888 - 1955
  • Windsor Express & Richmond Advertiser 1843 - 1844

Individual titles can be searched, or they can all be searched as a collective as part of the whole Trove newspaper collection. But unfortunately searching a subset of titles is not an option. This is were the Trove API comes into itself.

Last month I started playing around with the Trove API and have now made a little website called Hawkesbury Newspapers, which enables the visitor to search the subset of Hawkesbury titles. Although I only just got the basic search feature working, it is interestingly none the less playing around with the Hawkesbury subset.
  

Auld Ebenezer Kirk

Using the basic searching that I have online currently, I searched for "Auld"...as I do. The following article on the Auld Ebenezer Kirk of the Hawkesbury stood out, as Ebenezer Church is just up the road.

Celebrating their 118th Anniversary in 1927, the Reverend John Hay Goodlet Auld was in attendance.  

Source: OUR OLDEST CHURCH. (1927, February 4). Windsor and Richmond Gazette (NSW : 1888 - 1954), p. 10. Retrieved April 15, 2014, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article85950712