Indexing Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries

This article by Ann Smith (Hon. Secretary) and Mark Forrest (Dorset Editor) first appeared in Local History News (no.136, Summer 2020, pp.19-20), the magazine of the British Association for Local History

The first collected volume of *SDNQ*, published in 1890.

Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries has the enviable record of being the oldest continuously published periodical of its kind. In the autumn of 1887 a group of antiquarians from Somerset and Dorset decided to create a local journal, based on the example of other counties including Yorkshire, Gloucestershire, and Lincolnshire. An increasing interest in antiquarian matters across the country had resulted in the creation of a series of journals called simply ‘Notes and Queries’. These journals were envisaged as a ‘repository for the preservation of facts’ which would include notes on items of antiquarian interest, transcriptions of documents and queries about historical matters.

The Somerset and Dorset group recognized that the journal they were creating was likely to have a smaller audience than larger shires, so they wisely decided to cover both counties. The first issue came out in March 1888, and Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries has been published in an unbroken sequence ever since. It is one of only two that have achieved similar longevity, the other being Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries which was first published in 1900, the others having long fallen by the wayside.

Survey of the county Notes and Queries and similar journals (based upon a survey by C R Elrington).[i]

Bedfordshire Notes and Queries 1883-1893
Berkshire Notes and Queries 1890-1891
The Cheshire Sheaf: being local gleanings, historical and antiquarian, relating to Cheshire, Chester and North Wales first series 1878-1886, second series 1891, third series 1896-1965, fourth series 1966-1971, fifth series 1976-1978, sixth series 1989-1990.
Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries 1900-present
Gloucestershire Notes and Queries 1879-1914
The East Anglian, or, notes and queries on subjects connected with the counties of Suffolk, Cambridge, Essex and Norfolk 1858-1869, second, third and fourth series 1885-1910
Hampshire Notes and Queries 1883-1900
Home Counties magazine: devoted to the topography of London, Middlesex, Essex, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Surrey and Kent 1899-1912
Leicestershire and Rutland Notes and Queries and Antiquarian Gleaner, 1891-1895
Lincolnshire Notes and Queries 1889-1936
Middlesex and Hertfordshire Notes and Queries 1895-1898
Northamptonshire Notes and Queries 1886-1896, new series 1905-1923
Northern Notes and Queries: Devoted to the antiquities of Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmorland, and Durham 1906-1907
Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Notes and Queries 1892-1898
Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries 1887-present
Sussex Notes and Queries, 1927-1971
Westmorland Note Book and Natural History Record, 1888
Wiltshire Notes and Queries 1893-1910
Yorkshire Notes and Queries, 1904-1909

Each of the thirty-seven volumes of Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries has been individually indexed. But the task of producing a consolidated index was a different matter. The Revd. Bartelot offered to compile a general index to volumes 1-20 in 1929, but the minutes of the following year record it was found to be too costly to produce. In 1937 a general index for the first 22 volumes was again considered, but again deemed to be too costly. In 1939 a sub-committee was set up to consider the idea of a general index, but as no more committee meetings were held until 1946, it was shelved. The next time it was mentioned was 1969 when it was thought to large a task. In 2015 the committee came to discuss the matter again, largely because it was clear that the online index to the Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society had greatly increased access to past issues. In an age of optical character recognition and mass editing of spreadsheets the creation of an index had become an achievable task.

Once edited the resulting index was placed on the Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries website and the results of all this editing were immediately visible. Traffic to the website immediately increased, requests for back numbers reached their highest levels and new subscriptions are also rising.

During the course of editing the indexes it became clear that the subject matter of the contributions varied considerably over time. Family histories and genealogies were common in the early volumes, but these are now largely the preserve of the family history societies. Some themes remain constant through the years: dialect, local customs, and curiosity about the natural world. In 1891 when migratory patterns were not fully understood and H.J. Moule asked why wild fowl had left ‘temperate Iceland’ for and unusually ‘arctic Dorset’ the previous winter. There are no longer articles about people with unusual physical characteristics and it is now necessary to explain agricultural and manorial terms which were familiar to early readers.

Transcriptions of early documents are still printed, although longer texts would now be published by one of the county record societies, and the medieval churchwardens’ accounts of Sherborne Abbey and extracts from the court rolls of Shaftesbury Abbey would no longer be reproduced in abbreviated Latin. Queries were more common in earlier volumes when scholars like John Fuller Maitland, a founder of the Folk Song Society, sought out ‘traditional songs of the English peasantry’ in 1891 and in particular the tune to the Somerset song “The Harnet and the Bettle”.

The clergy dominated the early editorial committees demonstrated their interests in sermons, religious customs and church art and architecture, would certainly have published the note ‘Armourials in Montacute Church’, but they might have balked at publishing one titled ‘“Sluttish Widow’s Locks” the Dibilatory Powers of St Cuthburga’, both of which appeared in the September issue of 2018.

The Somerset and Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Societies produce annual Proceedings. Dorset’s, which began as the Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club in 1877, predates the first publication of Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries by a decade and the Proceedings of the Somerset Natural History and Archaeological Society was first published in 1851. They publish field and excavation reports and longer articles and, while they are multidisciplinary, much of their content is more specialist than the casual reader might find accessible. Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries publishes shorter, often lighter, but equally well sourced pieces. A note can be a narrative which does not need to enter into a debate that would frame an article.

A piece in the centenary publication in 1988 by Joe Bettey demonstrates SDNQ’s ability to satisfy the curious with scholarly research in a note that explores the landscape, archaeology, wildlife and history. In a little over 1500 words Dr Bettey informs us of the profitability of duck decoys in both Somerset and Dorset in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; considering their construction and management. He draws upon archival and published material from both counties and writes a piece that is at once informative to the casual reader and referenced by economic historians.[ii]

The indexing process
The Somerset editor scanned the earlier issues for inclusion on the FindMyPast website, so these were available in a digitised format.[iii] The Secretary and Dorset editor approached John Palmer, a retired computer expert who had created the index to the Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, for advice. Thankfully John was between projects and, having an interest in the contents of Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries, he agreed to assist in the creation of an online index. His help with the more technical elements of conversion was invaluable.

More than 500 scanned images of the volume indexes were turned into text files using OCR (optical character recognition) software. The OCR process worked well for more modern character sets, but has some difficulty with nineteenth century typefaces, italics and lower case capitals. Capitals were retained for the titles of articles while brackets, rather than italics, were used to denote authors. Although John could correct some common errors electronically each page was hand edited by the Secretary, Dorset editor and former web editor, Judith Ford, to remove the remaining mistakes of the text. The results were then consolidated into a single file where matters of style can be resolved: some volumes had reviews of books, while others had book reviews some sea-going craft are listed as ships, others as vessels. Many of these issues are still to be resolved by further editing, but the online trial version of the index has provided more eyes and a wider range of subject specialists to note the problems.

A second version of the index resolved many of the problems identified in the trial version. The present web editor, Rachel Hassall, has made further amendments, and promotion through Twitter and Facebook has also increased the use of the index. Access to past editions available on the genealogy website FindMyPast has also increased as have subscriptions to the printed edition for the first time in several decades.

A short history of Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries together with contact and subscription details may be found on the website.

[i]C. R. Elrington ‘One Hundred Years of Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries’, Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries, 1988, vol.32, pt328, pp. 689-694.

[ii]J. Bettey ‘the profitability of duck decoys’, Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries, 1988, v.32, pt328, pp. 712-714.

[iii] Prior to this the committee of SDNQ had agreed with Origins for the scanning of the first 30 volumes of SDNQ, with a supplementary index prepared by Adrian Webb, the Somerset editor. Digitised copies of SDNQ are now also available on the Internet Archive at https://archive.org/

Share this: