An accidental death?

Colin Bain · Post by **Colin Bain** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 2:51 am

I am trying to establish how James Bain, the brother of my g-grandfather, died and would be grateful for any help or advice anyone may be able to provide.

James died in the Western Infirmary, Glasgow, on 2 April, 1877, as the result of what is described on his death certificate as a "fracture to the base of skull and ruptured brain". He was involved in railway advertising at the time of his death.

There is nothing on the certificate to indicate an inquiry or police involvement. However, it is possible that the accident (or incident) that caused James' injury may have been reported in the press (the Western Infirmary does not have records from this time).

If anyone reading this happens to be searching through Glasgow newspapers from early April of 1877, I should be grateful if they could keep an eye out for any report that might explain the fate of James Bain. As you will appreciate, access to Scottish newspaper archives from Australia is not easy.

Thanks a lot.
Colin Bain

Post by **emanday** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 11:10 am

Hi Colin,

You could try the Scotsman newspaper archives on http://archive.scotsman.com/

It is a pay-to-view site but searching is free, so if nothing comes up it has cost nothing.

Colin Bain · Post by **Colin Bain** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 1:23 pm

Hi Mary,

Thanks for the input. I've just tried the link to the Scotsman and spent my L7.95. No luck on my primary target and found the paper rather Edinburgh-centric whereas I'm more into Glasgow.

Nevertheless, it was an intersting surf, so thanks

Colin

Rab · Post by **Rab** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 5:44 pm

Hi Colin,

it's unfortunate that you did not find what you were looking for it. Depending on your search criteria though it could still be there. As the indexing is based on Optical Character Recognition (OCR) it's not the best and prone to errors.

One accidental death in my family from 1843 took me more than one visit to find after concluding the first time it was not there. Using my ancestor's name didn't turn up anything and it was only after a bizarre string of words that I luckily found a match. The death I was looking for had taken place in Glasgow and the Scotsman had reported the death from the Glasgow Herald- there are many of those.

As you know the date of death it might be worth trying a search period of a few weeks either side and trying some different search critera then sifting through the results. It's very time consuming I know but there is always the chance it might just turn something up.

All the best

Rab

Colin Bain · Post by **Colin Bain** » Fri Jun 29, 2007 4:14 am

Hi Rab,

I'll try again as you suggest while my subscription remains current. Here's hoping!

Thanks for the interest.

Regards
Colin

Post by **joette** » Fri Jun 29, 2007 11:16 am

The local papers at the Mitchell?I will be there in August & I love trawling through the old newspaper archives.
If you don't have any joy I will be happy to look for you.It will be late August though.

Colin Bain · Post by **Colin Bain** » Fri Jun 29, 2007 1:05 pm

Hi Joette,

Many thanks. This would be great and much appreciated. I'll be away from my home computer much of August but will try to keep in e-mail contact by other means.
Look forward to hearing from you in due course.

Cheers
Colin