A bit of local history or heritage on your site makes for some lovely content that often gets people reminiscing in your comments box. You could try including an element of this in your site by:
Talking to a local resident or ex-resident about their memories of the area and publishing this online, either as a film or sound recording, or simple write-up of what was said if you do not have recording equipment. Above is an interview of pub landlady Anne Tighe talking of her memories of Birmingham, which was published on Digbeth is Good.
Do you have any old local newsletters or parish magazines lying around? You could try publishing a picture of these online, like Hayes People’s History have done with the Clarion Club Newspaper.
Do you have, or can you find any old photos of the area? Post these on your website as Pauline Sargent has done on Drimnagh is Good: ‘Drimnagh in the Old Days’. Ask your readers if they might have any information or memories associated with the image to encourage feedback.
More archive websites (check copyright conditions before reusing on your site):
- The National Archives on Flickr
- British Pathe, with over 90,000 videos from 1896 to 1976
- Francis Frith is a very extensive commercial collection
- The British Library Online Archives
- The British Library Newspaper archives – 2 million pages between 1800 and 1900
For way over a year now I’ve been running a feature on HoylakeJunction entitled ‘Friday Photo’. I started by featuring present day images. But when I featured an old image kindly sent in by a reader, I received lots of comments and genuine interest.
Nowadays people send me photos nearly every week. You can tie local history together by doing then and now features – great way of improving your local history knowledge.
I need to pluck up the courage and make a couple of videos next!
Cheers
John
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