Cover lesson · History · Year 8 · Intermediate

Searching archives: industrial Wales

DCF: Producing → Sourcing, searching and planning digital content

Name: Class: Date:

Cover teacher — you need no subject knowledge

Print: this sheet, one per pupil, and the stimulus sheet “One question, five searches: children in the coal mines”, one per pair. No computers are needed: the searches have already been run and printed. If computers are available, pupils may try their Part C search on one of the four real websites listed at the bottom of the stimulus sheet.

Run: 5 min — read Osian’s question and “How this catalogue reads your search” aloud · 12 min — Part A, what went wrong and right in each search · 15 min — Part B, judge the eight saved results · 8 min — fill the research log · 15 min — Part C, plan a search of their own · 5 min — two pupils read out their search string and the class suggests one improvement.

Collect: this sheet. The topic mentions children working in mines in the 1840s; nothing on the sheets is graphic.

What you are doing

Historians do not find sources by typing a question into a search box. They plan: which words people used at the time, which language the records were written in, which dates and places to filter by, and which archive is likely to hold the answer. You are going to follow one pupil’s five searches, work out why some failed, judge the sources he found, and then plan a search of your own.

Part A — learn from Osian’s searches

(a) Search 1 found 24,316 results and none of the first five helps him. Give two reasons why.

(b) Which two filters did he add in Search 3? How many results did they remove compared with Search 2? Show the subtraction.

(c) Search 4 found three records that Search 3 missed. What did Osian change, and what does it teach you about the words you search with?

(d) Why did Search 5 find six records that none of his other searches found? Why does that matter for a question about Wales in the 1840s?

Part B — judge the eight saved results

Primary sources were made at the time you are studying. Secondary sources were made later by someone looking back. Neither kind is automatically better — the question is whether it helps answer this question.

Ref	Primary or secondary?	Useful for Osian? High / Medium / Low	Why — one reason	One thing to watch out for
R1
R2
R3
R4
R5
R6
R7
R8

Research log — the best three

Pick the three results that would help Osian most. Copy the reference number exactly: without it, nobody can find the record again.

Reference number	Title and date	What it can tell Osian	What he must be careful about

Part C — plan your own search

Choose one question and plan the search before you type anything.

How did people in Wales react to the explosion at the Universal Colliery, Senghennydd, in October 1913?
Why did the quarrymen at Penrhyn Quarry, Bethesda, go on strike from 1900 to 1903?
What was life like for ironworkers’ families in Merthyr Tydfil in the 1830s?

Welsh word bank: glo = coal · glöwr / glowyr = miner / miners · pwll glo = coal pit · tanchwa = pit explosion · chwarel = quarry · chwarelwyr = quarrymen · streic = strike · gwaith haearn = ironworks · teulu = family · plant = children

My question (number)
Key words in English
Words people used at the time, and words that mean the same (for OR)
Welsh words I will also search with
My first search, written exactly as I would type it
Filters: date, place, type of record
Where I will search first (one of the four websites on the stimulus sheet), and why
If I get too many results, I will…
If I get too few results, I will…

Step by step

5 min — Read Osian’s question and “How this catalogue reads your search” on the stimulus sheet.
12 min — Part A: answer (a) to (d), using the numbers in the search log.
15 min — Part B: judge all eight results.
8 min — Fill the research log with your best three.
15 min — Part C: plan your own search. On a computer: run it and write down how many results you got.
5 min — Be ready to read out your search string and hear one improvement.

Success criteria

I can explain why a search gives too many or too few results, using the numbers.
I use filters, quotation marks, OR and words from the period to make a search more precise.
I search in Welsh as well as English when the records may be in Welsh.
I can say whether a source is primary or secondary and judge how useful it is for one specific question.
I record sources with their reference number so that anyone can find them again.

If you finish early

The catalogue shows 20 results per page. How many pages would Osian have to click through to see every result from Search 2?
Result R8 claims that “most children in Wales worked down the pits”. Plan the search you would run to test that claim. What kind of record would prove or disprove it?
Would typing door boy without quotation marks give more results than "door boy", or fewer? Explain why.