Resources and Tips for Chess History Research

[John Saunders]

I've started this new thread as a place where the forum's chess history buffs can share their expertise in researching chess history and perhaps inspire others to take up this activity. I've long been impressed by the ability of English Chess Forum members to dig out arcane bits of information about chess events and players, which they do in various ways: by looking things up in their own library or their chess organisation's archives; generously sharing items from their own researches in libraries and archives; using their online know-how to access relevant material online; or by remembering and recounting stories from their own early days in chess. Chess history research can be a lot of fun, even more so when conducted collaboratively.

Which leads me to the first tip for chess history research - use this forum's search facility. There is a remarkable amount of material already available in this part of the English Chess Forum. Finding relevant material in an online forum is perhaps not as straightforward as typing a question into Google but is well worth the effort.

Second (and more important) tip: use the material you already own. Many of us will have back numbers of British Chess Magazine (hereafter BCM) or CHESS (in capital letters, as the BH Wood-founded mag is usually referred to). For me they remain the starting point for most chess researches. BCM covers the ground from the 1880s onwards while CHESS does so from the 1930s. If your interests pre-date those, the good news is that there were some excellent chess magazines in the English language before then, and the even better news is that some of them can be accessed online (this used to be relatively easy via the Chess Archaeology website but I've just discovered to my horror that it's gone). Google Books has a lot of old chess material which is out of copyright and can be accessed or even downloaded in PDF form. And if you are prepared to travel then the ECF has an archive located at De Montfort University which has (I think) complete runs of BCM and CHESS which can be consulted, and much else besides.

You might also have some old chess material of your own - bulletins, reports, results, local club/county publications, scoresheets - that nobody else has. Don't throw it out! Even if you're not interested in it yourself, somebody somewhere probably is. Consider digitising it (in my ideal world every chess player would be a dab hand at using a scanner) and send it to someone (e.g. a club webmaster), or else make it the starting point for your own unique area for research. I personally love browsing club and county websites which have a historical section and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

I'll leave it there for now but I'll post a few more thoughts soon. Hopefully the forum's leading sleuths will also take up the baton and share their secrets.

[John Upham]

A most excellent collection of suggestions and top tips John.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

A list of some of the more useful local chess history websites would help. It is a Sisyphean task keeping abreast of them all, and a wider listing, if it does not already exist, would be of great value. What would also help is ensuring that sites are archived, published, or preserved in some way. Digitisation (as happened with the careful OCR scanning of the SCCU Bulletins) is a real boon.

As for searching tips, I find Google Books incredibly useful. I don't use newspaper archives as much as I should, but then there are those here who are far more familiar with how to ferret out chess history from there. The other advice is to always be sceptical and to question how good a source is. So many errors arise when people don't question their sources or are not alert to inconsistencies arising from wrong information.

[Gerard Killoran]

I'd like to be a bit controvesial here and recommend the Chessgames website, in particular the Biographers Bistro forum.

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/bistro.pl

There is the occasional troll but the great majority of users take a serious approach.

J. N. Pope of the Chess Archaeology website is a frequent contributor. Another diligent member goes by the pen name 'Tabanus' and has listed an extremely useful list of Internet sources in his profile here:

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessuser?uname=Tabanus

It even includes our good selves.

It appears that Chessgames has cleaned up its act in recent years, but I'm interested in what other users think.

[Mike Gunn]

See also the book "British Chess Literature to 1914: A Handbook for Historians" by Tim Harding. (I was introduced to this book by the author when we were both trying to look up something in the De Montefort archive last year.)

[John Townsend]

I'm sure there are good aspects to the site which Gerard has recommended, and J.N. Pope, of Chess Archaeology fame, would certainly come into that category.

I have to say my experience has been very bad. Some time ago, I was unpleasantly abused on the site by a person using a pseudonym who I have never met. I was not a member of the site and took no part in its discussions. The writer did not even say what was behind the abuse.

In my opinion, no site is worth putting up with that.

[Gerard Killoran]

I'm sure there are good aspects to the site which Gerard has recommended, and J.N. Pope, of Chess Archaeology fame, would certainly come into that category.

I have to say my experience has been very bad. Some time ago, I was unpleasantly abused on the site by a person using a pseudonym who I have never met. I was not a member of the site and took no part in its discussions. The writer did not even say what was behind the abuse.

In my opinion, no site is worth putting up with that.

Some of us have thicker skins than others. Water, duck's back, sticks and stones, etc. It's a personal choice.

The Biographers Bistro forum is no rougher than one or two discussions I've had here. The Tabanus list will also be very useful to anyone interested in historical chess research on the internet.

Tim Harding's books are indispensible.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"The other advice is to always be sceptical and to question how good a source is."

Yes. My local paper in Surrey (the Surrey Mirror) achieved the nickname "Sorry Error" due to its multitude of typos. I doubt anyone would research me, but my name was printed correctly and as Thurlo, Thurloe, Thurslow, Thurloy, Thurlough, Furlow, even when they got a typed or emailed report, and I assume they didn't pick on me particularly, so getting the odd initial or forename wrong to more worthy people would happen all the time.

I don't know if https://archive.org/ is any use, they keep emailing me, but they are having copyright arguments at present.

[John Saunders]

Chessgames dot com has become one of my favourite websites and I visit it regularly. I contribute the occasional correction and addition, but it's far from one-way traffic: I apply plenty of corrections to BritBase where Chessgames has something right and I have it wrong. There are some very able people there who are skilled historians. A few mickey-takers, too, as at all forums, but one learns to ignore them as one does all worthless internet/TV noise. I've been in email contact with Tabanus a few times. He's very helpful and extremely knowledgeable. I know his real name (he's not a Brit) but I won't divulge it as he may prefer it not to be revealed.

The two links in Gerard's post upthread are both excellent. I'll add them to my BritBase Chess History links (I suspect Tabanus's list is rather better than mine).

[GrahamStuart]

"The other advice is to always be sceptical and to question how good a source is."

Yes. My local paper in Surrey (the Surrey Mirror) achieved the nickname "Sorry Error" due to its multitude of typos. I doubt anyone would research me, but my name was printed correctly and as Thurlo, Thurloe, Thurslow, Thurloy, Thurlough, Furlow, even when they got a typed or emailed report, and I assume they didn't pick on me particularly, so getting the odd initial or forename wrong to more worthy people would happen all the time.

I don't know if https://archive.org/ is any use, they keep emailing me, but they are having copyright arguments at present.

Not sure about the copyright issues - but for those of us who don't have access to some of the older BCM's these were of great use to me for some recent research into Hampshire Chess AGM's, County Matches etc.
https://archive.org/search?query=BRITISH+CHESS+MAGAZINE

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

A handy tip for finding recent deaths - currently freebmd.org.uk stops around 1995. However deaths up to approximately 2 years ago can be found on the General Register Office site: www.gro.gov.uk

You have to register to use the GRO site, but this is free. Then to find a death that didn't show up on freebmd you set the radio button at the top to Death, enter the surname and first name, sex and for the year the death was registered put 1995. Modify the +- to 2 years (the maximum). Click search and if none of the matches looks like the one you're looking for, add 5 to the year and try again. Keep going until you get to 2020 (that's only six times!). The +-2 means you can go in steps of 5 years.

The GRO index is also incredibly useful for some other searches:
* The middle names are almost always included in birth and death registrations
* The age at death is included in death records (only shown on freebmd from about 1865). If no age is shown, this means that child was under a year old when they died.
* Best of all, the mother's maiden name is included in birth registrations right from the start (1837). The mother's maiden name is only available on freebmd from around 1911. When the mother's maiden name is a dash - that means that the child was born illegitimately.

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

The exact date of death can often be found on the Governments probate search:
https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/

Prior to 1996 the probates are available as a simple summary in an image. This often gives the place of death and perhaps the last residence of the person.

From 1996, you get the date of death for free but the probate itself has to be bought. I think it costs around £2.50.

[GrahamStuart]

Hampshire Chess Resources
Not really any tips, but more on the resource side of things.
This maybe as good a place as any to detail what is available on the Hampshire Chess History website with regards to scanned archives. Some of these may have been listed on Britbase or other sites, but probably not all in one place.

Westward Ho!
Westward Ho! was the chess newsletter / magazine published by the West of England Chess Union from the 1960’s to the 2000’s. The 65 copies I have from 1972 to 2001 have been scanned. I would be very interested in receiving the full set if anyone else has them!
https://hampshirechesshistory.co.uk/westward-ho/

Hampshire Chess Bulletin
HCA Bulletin which was first published in 1961 by John Grant. In 1967 when he retired, George William Kilmister who was also one of the editors of Westward Ho! took over and this became a more polished article. The last edition was in 1973. The Chilworth Review (1983) and Hampshire Newsletters (1999 to 2003) are also included.
https://hampshirechesshistory.co.uk/ham ... lications/

Chess Notes
For many, many years, Jack (JEC) Grant used to write a weekly column titled “CHESS NOTES” for the Portsmouth Evening News / Evening News). The original notes for numbers 1 to 85 (6th September 1976 – 13th November 1978) which were passed to the Newspaper are included in the Hampshire Chess Archives. Once the British Newspaper Archive for the Portsmouth News moves beyond 1960 I should be able to update this.
https://hampshirechesshistory.co.uk/chess-notes/

Hampshire Chess History 1944
In 1944 the Hampshire Hon. Secretary F.L Taylor produced a large document detailing information about the Hampshire Chess Association including numerous activities, such as a summary of the County Matches, the Hampshire Individual Championship, Correspondence matches and Special events. This 187 page document is fascinating and has been used extensively on both my site and for double checking other resources.
https://hampshirechesshistory.co.uk/ham ... tory-1944/

Southampton Chess Publications
The Southampton Chess Club Centenary Booklet – 1983 and the British Chess Championship – 1986 Programme. A source I am waiting for again is when the Southern Evening Echo is scanned past 1910 (especially 1960's - 2000) the weekly chess articles will be of great interest.
https://hampshirechesshistory.co.uk/sou ... lications/

HCA AGM Chess Minutes 1946 - 1985
The minutes from the HCA AGM in this period (200 pages). I also have non scanned material from the 1960's for the committee meetings and AGM, but these have not been added currently.
https://hampshirechesshistory.co.uk/hca ... 1946-1985/

As an aside I have SCCU Bulletins, but these are of course available from the SCCU Archives (and I am sure everyone is aware of this, as they are fantastic).
https://sccu-chess.com/index.php/en/bulletin
https://sccu-chess.com/index.php/en/bulletin-2

I have a number of BCF News Flash bulletins, but as not related to Hampshire have not really looked at these in detai. I am sure others will also have these, but again if these were scanned and made available they may be of interest.

What I would love to see is all the ECF Material Archived at De Montfort University be made available online, as this would help plug gaps, double check material.

[John Saunders]

Great tips from Jon regarding the GRO. I registered with them some time ago and knew some of those tips but not all of them by any means, so that was very useful.

Graham's Hampshire Chess History website is a superb piece of work. Right up there with the SCCU archive and Steve Mann's Yorkshire Chess History site. I hope these excellent websites prove inspirational and get a lot more scanners whirring up and down the land...

[Kevin Thurlow]

A general point - if you can find a library that is still open, my experience is that the staff tend to love it if you ask them questions, that gets them searching archives instead of doing the boring stuff. Local history centres are really helpful too.