postcard.co.uk

Hi - my main interest in Postcards is in the wonderful 'window on the past' they can provide. My collection is mainly of old pictures which I can show freely on my history and geneology web sites.

It occurs to me that the names, addresses and messages on old cards could also be a great bonus to family history researchers. Does anyone know if there is anyone already collecting this information? I am assuming that collection and publication of names, addresses and messages from over 100 years ago would not contravene any rights or laws.

Paul

Yes the Family History people are on to this, especially a chap called Colin Buck who has been indexing cards by the names on the back for some time

http://www.parishchest.com/en-gb/dept_1481.html

Regards - Kevin

Thanks for the link Kevin.

The prices seem resonable but I imagine the collection has to be rather limited. I suppose I was thinking of a database that anyone could contribute to and search online.

Regards - Paul

[quote="Baldlygo"]Thanks for the link Kevin.

The prices seem resonable but I imagine the collection has to be rather limited. I suppose I was thinking of a database that anyone could contribute to and search online.

Regards - Paul[/quote]

The idea certainly has possibilities if enough people could be persuaded to contribute, many might find entering the information a bit tedious though.

It could maybe be financed by making a small charge for a succesful find (sort of a no win no fee system) but I fear it would need a rather huge initial input to get it going.

I rather like this idea, although as Kevin says, it would be highly tedious and time consuming. When I buy old postcards, I tend to be interested in the picture, but my wife likes to read to reverse side - a bit of social history.

If Baldlygo would like to start something like this, I would willingly contribute, as and when time permitted.
Andrew

Andrew wrote:If Baldlygo would like to start something like this, I would willingly contribute, as and when time permitted.

Sadly I already have too many irons in the fire to think about starting a new project myself but I would be happy to donate info. from my own cards to an open existing database.

Thanks for the support of the idea.

Paul

Baldlygo wrote:Hi - my main interest in Postcards is in the wonderful 'window on the past' they can provide. My collection is mainly of old pictures which I can show freely on my history and geneology web sites.

It occurs to me that the names, addresses and messages on old cards could also be a great bonus to family history researchers. Does anyone know if there is anyone already collecting this information? I am assuming that collection and publication of names, addresses and messages from over 100 years ago would not contravene any rights or laws.

Paul

It could be nice to have a searchable archive online for people researching their family trees. I've been wondering about how do it on my site. I've already got all the postcards, including the backs, scanned and wouldn't mind entering the information from messages onto a database. The problem being, I know nothing about databases and wouldn't have a clue where to start - which is obviously a small drawback It is something I'm going to look into though, I'll let you know if I get anywhere with it.

I can help...

I can supply free web space, an SQL database and some php programming skills. I'll need work out how to configure some online forms for submitting data but the web pages displaying the info would be simple enough.

We'd need to work out what fields we'd need in the database, date, name address, message, contributor etc.

I'd also suggest we'd need to be able to restrict access to known contributors .. otherwise the system could be open to abuse.

If you want me to help let me know ... I'll understand if people want to do their own thing..