Thread: Dunsford? Id help, please

Originally Posted by Moonshae

You guys are simply amazing! Thank you for the detail. I'm curious, though...what do you do to conduct these searches? I suspect using cutler rather than "straight razor" with the name will yield more hits. I suppose I was hoping someone would have written more recently about razors like this. Seems like I have something fairly uncommon, with tortoise shell scales to boot.

I use a lot of different sources: easiest are

The Sheffield Indexers

Sheffield Records Online requires that you complete a signup form and wait to be validated by the site administrator, but it's well worth doing.

While both those sites offer search facilities on the apprentice records, I prefer to use the source they pull their data from, specifically the second volume of Robert Eadon Leader's 'History of the Cutler's Company of Hallamshire'. From Google you can download that book as a PDF file, and if you've got the tools, you can convert it to a searchable document. This is useful because there are typos and oddities in the records and it's often best to be able to see surrounding context, where the online searches aren't as easy to see where you're at. Also, Sheffield Indexers links to a different, inferior scanned copy of the same book. Volume 1 isn't available on Google Books, but I have a physical copy. However, it's mostly a narrative of the long and sometimes tedious history of the guild.

Another useful book is Gales & Martin's 1787 Directory of Sheffield. Again, while most or all of the information is technically available through the searches on Sheffield Indexers or Sheffield Records Online, the actual book can sometimes answer questions that a simple text search cannot (especially when it comes to fancy trademarks). I also have a physical copy of the 1887 reprint edition, which is very nice to have. Interestingly, there are some small differences between the 1887 facsimile edition and the original 1787 edition -- unfortunately, the original edition is only rarely available and does not appear to exist in scanned form.

All that said, those are the useful, free resources... But all the information I provided above came from The British Newspaper Archive. It's not hugely cheap, but I've come to rely on it when other sources fail me. Also useful is the international subscription for Ancestry.com, but that's pricey enough I've currently let my subscription lapse.