Talk:Daniel Schwarz (bandleader)

Removal of content

Please discuss before removing dates from this article. Parental or spousal dates are an important part of a biography about this time and place. For a start, the dates identify the individuals. The dates of this biography subject's parents are important, as they lived in a time of great poverty in their homeland, as did the biography subject himself. They had smallholdings which barely fed them and their children, and large numbers of their community were consequently trained during the winter as travelling musicians, and they travelled and sent home money in the summer. It was a terribly hard life, and the dates and place of the homeland define this. There is already a separate article containing this general background information, but we need the dates to match this biography subject and his parents with that state of affairs, i.e. the background of poverty and hard work. Storye book (talk) 16:15, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Cause of death?

It was usual for sudden deaths in the 19th century (prior to an act of parliament in the 1920s, following which post-mortems could be carried out without inquest) to be subject to a coroner's inquest as well as post-mortem. Was not one reported in the local newspapers? I am sure there would have been sufficient public interest to justify news interest locally when the performances of his band would have been keenly looked forward to and he was an alien to the local community.Cloptonson (talk) 05:51, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

The article contains every reference that I could find in the British Newspaper Archive (BNA) relating to that name. Any further research on that subject, I believe, would have to involve Original Research, which as you know we are not permitted to rely on as a sole source. The newspapers did report inquests, but not always (as far as I know) postmortems without inquests. Also, because the surname was fairly unusual in the UK at that time, my searches could have missed the name due to typos, misprints, misspellings etc. If you know of an acceptable authoritative third-party source which could reveal and support the information that you are looking for, please go ahead. It is likely that the answer that you are looking for would be on his death certificate. I try to limit the number of death certificates which I purchase for biographical research, because ten of those would cost a minimum of £110. However if you wish to purchase it from the GRO, and add it to the refn note about his death certificate, that is probably the best that could be done at present. Storye book (talk) 08:14, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Understand. I was wondering if local archives had microfilmed/fiched files of local newspapers - this is based on my own experience of research in Shropshire newspapers, being as I am Shropshire based. Postmortems without inquests became more common in the 20th century following the 1920s act. I myself made great use of the British Newspaper Archive when it was still accessible at Colindale in London, as well as at Shropshire Archives in the case of Shropshire newspapers. Clearly there has been no want of trying on your part.Cloptonson (talk) 17:18, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Firstly, the microfilm-reader machines in the local history departments of provincial libraries are (in my experience) virtually unreadable (especially with my poor eyesight), and their indexes are inadequate. Maybe, since I last used them, those machines have been updated, but bearing in mind the cash-strapped condition of most local libraries, I doubt it. Secondly, as far as I am aware, the BNA has microfilmed all the relevant local 19th-century newspapers for the Harrogate area, and the BNA index system and readability is far superior to those old windy-windy machines. If you wish to visit the Harrogate library and have a go, you would be made welcome. The staff are very helpful, efficient and friendly. Good luck! Storye book (talk) 06:47, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Thank you but I have no hope of travelling there in the foreseeable future, it would be best left to Yorkshire based users to visit.Cloptonson (talk) 20:18, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

It would not help if Yorkshire editors did visit the Yorkshire libraries, because, as I said, they have no more on their microfilms than exist at the BNA. The BNA Newspaper Archive is online, and I have a subscription for it, and I have searched it exhaustively for the name of this biography subject. As far as I can tell, there was no report in local papers of his inquest, if there ever was any. I suspect that if there were no reports and/or no inquest, then the fact that he was foreign and poor would have a bearing on that. If you are genuinely interested in this information then it would cost far less than a train ticket to Yorkshire or a sub to the BNA to purchase the death certificate. Storye book (talk) 09:21, 10 June 2023 (UTC)