Beards, burglary and booze: Jersey Archive reveals top digital discoveries

Monday 28 November 2016

Jersey Archive is inviting Islanders to #ExploreArchives this week – a showcase of the potential for archives to excite, bring together communities and tell astonishing stories. With over 300,000 records now digitised, Senior Archivist Stuart Nicolle sifted through the collection and shared the best of the bunch with Express.

The discovery week – run in conjunction with the National Archives in England and the Archives and Records Association until 27 November – kicked off last Saturday with ‘What’s Your Street’s Story?’ talk in Longueville.

“This kind of talk is what the Explore Your Archives is all about, as it is encouraging people to come in and hear stories of their community and to go on and research further themselves,” Senior Archivist Stuart Nicolle said.

Jersey Archive has digitised over 300,000 records since last year, and is now starting to take in the Jersey Evening Post photo archive – a total of 1.5 million images to catalogue.

From the Archive's aliens cards-if your hair was unruly you could visit these dapper looking hairdressers #hairyarchives #explorearchives pic.twitter.com/8gPorrZyUb

— Jersey Heritage (@loveheritage) November 22, 2016

The team have used the week to post some of their more humorous finds on Twitter, with “#hairyarchives” a new favourite theme.

Senior Archivist Stuart Nicolle shared his top five interesting finds with Express - each with a surprising story.