The University of Leicester has digitized and posted online local directories from England and Wales dating as far back as 1750, providing a treasure trove for amateur and scholarly history and genealogy buffs. Ian Clarke, an archivist with Archive Quest who worked on the project, says the directories covered a wealth of eclectic information: "They were like the Yellow Pages, but with a lot more information, including census details, eclipses, and even tables showing tide times… People tracing their family history would be able to find out that their great-grandfather was a plumber for instance." The project was paid for through a grant of £335,000 from Lottery funds. The Web site features a search engine developed by document management firm ZyLab that uses fuzzy logic to allow users to search documents for key words, even if the term is spelled differently in the document.
posted by Marcus Zillman |
4:20 AM
