John Levin

More on the legal proceedings by Ancestry against the National Records of Scotland From Scotland, a daily news blog about genealogy, family history and personal heritage.

More on the National Records of Scotland vs. Ancestry . com judgement:

scottishgenes.blogspot.com/2025/09/more...

#Archives

The Nobel for Econsplaining Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson won a prize for applying economics to the very things economics is inherently bad at figuring out

Today’s must read piece

on.ft.com/4f844Iv

Guest Post: Candace Jackson Gray interviews Paul Finkelman Candace Jackson Gray interviews Paul Finkelman, the John E. Murray Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

LOL:

"At a time when racial issues are so deeply troubling, Mr. Marmion and the CEO of Hein, William S. Hein, simply felt there was a moral and civic obligation to share this product with anyone, anywhere."

earlyamericanists.com/2016/12/27/p...

Can anyone confirm that there is no free, individual access to Hein Online's "Slavery in America and the World" collection?

I had an individual account, which now doesn't work, and can't see any other way to access it without going through an instititution.

#LegalHistory

Tories to pledge to create immigration taskforce modelled on Trump’s Ice Proposed ‘removals force’ will be tasked with deporting 150,000 people a year in bid to tackle illegal immigration

Tories announce plans for paramilitary terror:

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

#NoBorders

What an admirably clear statement from the Jewish Leadership Council, especially when all of those involved must surely have been dealing with so many other urgent challenges in safety, security and grief + shock today before having this further divisive and distracting intervention to address too.

A woman is being frogmarched along cobbles by two policemen, with another apparently gesturing to her to calm down.

#OnThisDay, 4 Oct 1936, women join the Battle of Cable Street, in London's East End, protesting against a fascist march through the area. Of the 79 protestors arrested, eight are women, including Blanche Edwards (pictured).

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #BritishHistory 🗃️
1/2

Cable Street battle, Jewish London East End #OnThisDay 4 Oct 1936 with banner explicitly adapting antifascist slogan of defence of Madrid "NO PASARÁN." They shall not pass. Remember Olympia refers to 1934 British Union of Fascists meeting where they set on antifascist protesters

Apple did something very similar to the people of Hong Kong in 2019, removing an app that allowed protesters to track police movements via crowdsourced information:

gizmodo.com/apple-sells-...

‘This is strength’: stories of enslaved Africans in Grenada made into searchable archive Depths of Paradise project backed by British family and created by Stephen Lewis, a descendant of survivors

‘This is strength’: stories of enslaved Africans in Grenada made into searchable archive

Depths of Paradise project backed by British family and created by Stephen Lewis, a descendant of survivors

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

The database itself:
www.depthsofparadise.co.uk

#History 🗃️

The limpness barely disguises the dangerous 'both-sides' drivel.

Abolish the Royal Society.

So sorry to hear this. Best wishes from across the ocean.

British History Online (@bho@hcommons.social) 1 Post, 239 Following, 1 Follower · BHO is a digital library of historic source material and the Victoria County Histories, based at the Institute of Historical Research

We're moving our Mastodon account.

As our previous provider is shutting down, we've moved to hcommons.social/@bho

Gi' us a follow!

The People’s Papers: Exploring Greater Manchester’s Activist Neighbourhood Newspapers from the 1970s - Working Class Movement Library Announcing a new research project! In partnership with the University of Manchester’s new Humanities PGR Placement Scheme , we’ll be welcoming a PhD researcher, Arielle Lawson, to the Working Class Mo...

Decided it was about time to make an account for this research project. You can learn more about the current "People's Papers" archival efforts underway @wcmlibrary.bsky.social here:
wcml.org.uk/blog/the-peo...

And catch up on updates via Instagram: www.instagram.com/peoplespapers/

Correction: 4 paragraphs (out of 279) mention the OGL.

I think Ancestry are using this as a way of pressurizing NRS to sell access to them and them alone. I wonder how much public domain material Ancestry themselves are restricting access to.

And Ancestry are also impounders, which is why I do not see this case as one which will free the archives.

That's not the substance of the legal argument though.

bsky.app/profile/stat...

Ancestry and the NRS - when the corporate genealogy world turns ugly From Scotland, a daily news blog about genealogy, family history and personal heritage.

More on the Ancestry vs National Records Scotland battle:

Ancestry and the NRS - when the corporate genealogy world turns ugly
by @chrismpaton.bsky.social

scottishgenes.blogspot.com/2025/09/ance...

#Archives

This is the Ancestry vs National Records of Scotland decision. There is one mention of the Open Govt License, but opening up the records isn't really discussed. Doesn't seem to have copyright implications, but I can't claim to understand all the details.

I can't find the General Regulatory Chamber decision on this case (probably because I'm completely unfamiliar with such modern matters).

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

#Archives #Law #FreedomOfInformation #FOI

Ancestry in legal bid to access Scottish family records DNA testing site, Ancestry.com, has taken legal action to access millions of Scottish family records held by the National Records of Scotland (NRS).

The condition of state archives in the UK, part 2:

Commercial co. demands access to state records.
(But not, it seems, that the records are made freely available.)

"Ancestry in legal bid to access Scottish family records"

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

#History #Archives

Why aren’t Police Records covered by the Public Records Act? — Campaign for Records Since 2012 the Archives and Records Association (ARA) has been campaigning for English and Welsh police records to be covered by the Public Records Act. John Chambers, Chief Executive of ARA gives the...

The condition of state archives in the UK, part 1:

Inaccessible police records, which are particularly important given, for example, the #Spycops scandal.

"Why aren’t Police Records covered by the Public Records Act?"

www.campaignforrecords.org/blog/why-are...

#History #Archives

Photo of a paper airplane on fire with text that reads "I am under no obligation to disclose anything and the papers belong to me. If I wanted to I could take them into the yard and have a bonfire with them" South Yorkshire Chief Constable Med Hughes. Credit for photo of on fire airplane is Aron Yigin via Unsplash

Why aren’t Police Records in England & Wales covered by the Public Records Act? We've been campaigning on this since 2012 - blog for more info:
www.campaignforrecords.org/blog/why-arent-police-records-covered-by-the-public-records-act
#publicaccountability
of interest @andyburnham.bsky.social ?

Dennis Morris: Music + Life ★★★★★ The Guardian ★★★★ Time Out Discover music, culture and Black British identity through the lens of Dennis Morris.

Highly recommended: Dennis Morris at the Photographer's gallery.

His early photos of life in #Hackney and Southall are absolutely fantastic.

thephotographersgallery.org.uk/whats-on/den...

Suzanne Duchamp | SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT The SCHIRN is dedicating the world’s first comprehensive solo exhibition to the pioneer of the Dada movement, Suzanne Duchamp (1889–1963). The retrospective shows her multifaceted oeuvre as an artist ...

Suzanne Duchamp retrospective coming to the Schirn Gallery in Frankfurt:

www.schirn.de/en/exhibitio...

#Dada

Suzanne Duchamp, the Mama of Dada, Made Absurdism Sparkle and Shine Work in her traveling retrospective (Kunsthaus Zurich and Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt) perpetuates Dada's playfulness without its wry, cold affect.

On Suzanne Duchamp:

www.artnews.com/art-in-ameri...

#Dada

Important new #OpenAccess article on how slavery in Britain was ended, and who ended it.

Taken Not Given: The End of Slavery in Britain
by Simon Newman

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

#History #EnslavedHistory 🗃️

Falsifying Heritage: The Denial and Disavowal of Glasgow’s Links with Atlantic Slavery By Stephen Mullen In a recent article in The Times, (‘Scottish Taxpayers should not have to pay the price for Slavery, 7 June 2025), Professor Nigel Biggar misrepresented an exhibition in Glasgow’s…

Stephen Mullen, a highly regarded historian specialising in Scotland's links with Atlantic slavery, objects to a right wing scholar's flagrant misrepresentation of his own work and that of Glasgow's Kelvingrove Museum's curators in @thetimes.com

alanlester.co.uk/blog/falsify...

Does anyone know of a list of early modern and c18th English spellings of words?

i.e. a list of alternative spellings, such as 'publick' for publick, 'Wyllyam' for William, and so on?

Surely such a thing must have been compiled?

#History #LinguisticHistory 🗃️

we have gone from a world in which we were told not to cite wikipedia because it was unreliable to a world where wikipedia might be the only reliable source left on the internet and we all owe a lot to the pedantic nerds who got us there