Whites Writing Whiteness

Tracing the trace: What is an archive? What is a collection? What is a document? A Lives & Letters/Narrative & A/B Studies Event Friday 13 January @ University of Edinburgh Name: Professor Katharine Cockin, University of Hull email k.m.cockin@hull.ac.uk Title: ‘Searching for Theatrical Ancestors: Traces in the Archive’ The AHRC Searching for Theatrical Ancestors project (2015-17) reconsiders the value of specific archival documents. Theatrical play programmes are sometimes unprepossessing. However, they often provide photographs, adverts for local businesses and numerous names of the individuals associated with a theatrical production. For the family history researcher, these documents provide a rich source of data. This paper explores how and why the resource was created and what it has to offer to different kinds of research. The Searching for Theatrical Ancestors (STAR) project has enhanced the AHRC Ellen Terry and Edith Craig Database (funded 2006-08), an online guide to one of the most significant UK theatre archives owned by the National Trust. These developments to the online resource have aimed to meet the needs of an existing and growing public community of users in the field of family history research as well as further benefiting academic communities. Family history researchers benefit from tracing information relating to specific fields of work but there has been little consolidation of data relating to work in the theatre. Cast lists in play programmes and records of theatrical companies provide data on performers and theatre workers. Audience members may also have recorded in letters or diaries their experiences of having attended a famous Shakespearean production. An attractive new interface invites users of the AHRC Ellen Terry and Edith Craig Database www.ellenterryarchive.hull.ac.uk to join the Shakespeare Train and take an online journey to trace the theatrical tours by Ellen Terry and the Lyceum Theatre in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Additional searchable data have been added to this online resource from digitized theatre programmes and links to relevant existing online external data sources (over 15,000 further records).