‹ The Hall of RecordsEntered into the record July 28, 2026
HISTORICAL RECORD · A DEMONSTRATIONMathematics1815 to 1852

Filed under

"NOTES BY THE TRANSLATOR." That is the whole of the credit the 1843 volume prints over the longer half of the article, and its contents page names only L. F. Menabrea. [A1]Scientific Memoirs, Volume III (London, 1843), Article XXIX, Sketch of the Analytical Engine invented by Charles Babbage, Esq., by L. F. Menabrea, with Notes by the Translator, printed pages 666 to 731Natural History Museum Library, London, via the Biodiversity Heritage Library, on the Internet Archiveclass A · read 2026-07-28

Lifted off the table

Fold-out diagram for the computation by the Engine of the Numbers of Bernoulli, printed with Note G in Scientific Memoirs, volume 3, 1843.

[A8]Natural History Museum Library, London (digitized for the Biodiversity Heritage Library)1843Public domainread 2026-07-29Downloaded the archive-served JPEG derivative of leaf 754 at 2241x1565, resized to 2200px on the long edge, converted to WebP at quality 80. No cropping, rotation, retouching, or tonal adjustment.

The record

The Notes run longer than the memoir they annotate. The only name at their foot is three letters, "A. A. L." [A1]Scientific Memoirs, Volume III (London, 1843), Article XXIX, Sketch of the Analytical Engine invented by Charles Babbage, Esq., by L. F. Menabrea, with Notes by the Translator, printed pages 666 to 731Natural History Museum Library, London, via the Biodiversity Heritage Library, on the Internet Archiveclass A · read 2026-07-28

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace

The record of Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, begins in a printed volume that names her nowhere and prints her work at length. [A1]Scientific Memoirs, Volume III (London, 1843), Article XXIX, Sketch of the Analytical Engine invented by Charles Babbage, Esq., by L. F. Menabrea, with Notes by the Translator, printed pages 666 to 731Natural History Museum Library, London, via the Biodiversity Heritage Library, on the Internet Archiveclass A · read 2026-07-28

Works

What survives, and who holds it

Works

Works of record

Each work is listed with the institution that holds it and the rights statement that institution publishes, quoted as written.

1843

Sketch of the Analytical Engine invented by Charles Babbage, Esq., with Notes by the Translator [A1]Scientific Memoirs, Volume III (London, 1843), Article XXIX, Sketch of the Analytical Engine invented by Charles Babbage, Esq., by L. F. Menabrea, with Notes by the Translator, printed pages 666 to 731Natural History Museum Library, London, via the Biodiversity Heritage Library, on the Internet Archiveclass A · read 2026-07-28

Article XXIX of Scientific Memoirs, Volume III, London. The translation of L. F. Menabrea's memoir runs from printed page 666 and the Notes by the Translator from printed page 691. The volume's contents page credits Menabrea alone; the printed article carries no translator's name at all.

Held by
Natural History Museum Library, London, via the Biodiversity Heritage Library, on the Internet Archive
Rights, as published
Quoted verbatim from the item record: "Public domain. The BHL considers that this work is no longer under copyright protection".

1843

Note G [A1]Scientific Memoirs, Volume III (London, 1843), Article XXIX, Sketch of the Analytical Engine invented by Charles Babbage, Esq., by L. F. Menabrea, with Notes by the Translator, printed pages 666 to 731Natural History Museum Library, London, via the Biodiversity Heritage Library, on the Internet Archiveclass A · read 2026-07-28

The last of the seven notes, beginning at printed page 722, on the computation by the Engine of the Numbers of Bernoulli. Its second paragraph begins: "The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate any thing. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform."

Held by
Natural History Museum Library, London, via the Biodiversity Heritage Library, on the Internet Archive
Rights, as published
Quoted verbatim from the item record: "Public domain. The BHL considers that this work is no longer under copyright protection".

1817 to 1852

Lovelace Byron papers [A6]King, Ada Augusta, (1815-1852) Countess of Lovelace, mathematician, papers and corresp; reference Dep. Lovelace Byron; covering dates 1817-1852; record N13554981The National Archives, Discovery catalogue, recording a holding of Oxford University: Bodleian Library, Special Collectionsclass A · read 2026-07-28

An archival deposit, not a publication. The National Archives Discovery catalogue records it under the reference Dep. Lovelace Byron, held by Oxford University: Bodleian Library, Special Collections, described as papers and corresp, with covering dates 1817 to 1852.

Held by
The National Archives, Discovery catalogue, recording a holding of Oxford University: Bodleian Library, Special Collections
Rights, as published
Recorded absence: the catalogue record returned at this URL carries no rights statement of its own. What is used from it is a finding-aid fact, namely the repository, the reference and the covering dates.

1843

The Science Museum Library copy of the 1843 printing [A5]Book, "Sketch of the analytical engine invented by Charles Babbage, Esq.", object number 30209019357339, shelfmark Babbage Collection MENABREAScience Museum Group, Science Museum Library at Wroughtonclass A · read 2026-07-28

Object number 30209019357339, shelfmark Babbage Collection MENABREA, held at the Science Museum Library at Wroughton. Printed by Richard and John E. Taylor, London, and bound with the Addition to the memoir of M Menabrea on the analytical engine.

Held by
Science Museum Group, Science Museum Library at Wroughton
Rights, as published
Quoted verbatim from the object record: "Data in the title, made, maker and details fields are released under Creative Commons Zero. Descriptions and all other text content are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence".

Record boundary

What the sources establish

Sources read
8
Primary or institutional
8
Distinct sources cited on this page
7
Works of record
4

Where the sources do not settle a question, this record does not answer it. Nothing above is inferred from anything else on the page.

What the record declines

That she was the first computer programmer, as a settled fact.

The record will not print that as a fact. The Computer History Museum records both halves of the position on one page: that "Ada is often referred to as 'the first programmer'." and that "The collaboration with Babbage was close and biographers debate the extent and originality of Ada's contribution." A description historians are still arguing over is rendered here as a description, never as a finding. [A2]Ada Lovelace, in The Babbage EngineComputer History Museumclass A · read 2026-07-28

Checked: The Computer History Museum's Ada Lovelace page, read on 2026-07-28. Both sentences stand on it.

That Babbage wrote the Notes and she only translated them.

Refused as firmly as the claim above it, and from the opposite side. Babbage's own printed account of 1864 says of the illustrations that "I suggested several, but the selection was entirely her own", and that the algebraic working out of the problems was hers too, excepting the one on the numbers of Bernoulli, which he offered to do and which came back to him corrected: "This she sent back to me for an amendment, having detected a grave mistake which I had made in the process." The extent question stays open, and this record settles it in neither direction. [A3]Charles Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1864), page 136Getty Research Institute, on the Internet Archiveclass A · read 2026-07-28

Checked: Passages from the Life of a Philosopher, page 136, in the Getty Research Institute scan, read on 2026-07-28.

That she built, ran, or operated a computing machine.

There was no such machine to run. The Science Museum Group's record of the trial model states that "Only part of the machine as a trial piece was completed before Babbage's death in 1871." The Notes describe a machine on paper, and this record claims nothing beyond the paper. [A4]Babbage's Analytical Engine, 1834-1871. (Trial model), object number 1878-3Science Museum Groupclass A · read 2026-07-28

Checked: Science Museum Group object 1878-3, Babbage's Analytical Engine trial model, read on 2026-07-28.

That the 1843 publication carries her name.

It does not. The contents page credits L. F. Menabrea alone, the second half of the article is headed "NOTES BY THE TRANSLATOR.", and the signature is the initials "A. A. L." The name is absent from the printed article and from the volume around it. [A1]Scientific Memoirs, Volume III (London, 1843), Article XXIX, Sketch of the Analytical Engine invented by Charles Babbage, Esq., by L. F. Menabrea, with Notes by the Translator, printed pages 666 to 731Natural History Museum Library, London, via the Biodiversity Heritage Library, on the Internet Archiveclass A · read 2026-07-28

Checked: The full text of the scanned 1843 volume, searched end to end on 2026-07-28 for Lovelace, Ada and Augusta. The count for each is zero.

The record

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace has a source page.

The same renderer a customer's published page mounts, drawing the same facts this room holds the sources for. Everything below is its apparatus.

View the record →sourceofyou.com/ada-lovelace
One record, two views

The apparatus

What stands behind the record: the works and who holds them, the claims this record refuses, every source read and when, and the gate stack this figure passed before a page was compiled.

Sources

Sources

Class A is primary or institutional archival material. Class B is scholarly secondary work, cited with edition and page, and used only where class A could not be reached. Every source below was read at the URL given, on the date given.

  1. [A1]Class A

    Scientific Memoirs, Volume III (London, 1843), Article XXIX, Sketch of the Analytical Engine invented by Charles Babbage, Esq., by L. F. Menabrea, with Notes by the Translator, printed pages 666 to 731

    Natural History Museum Library, London, via the Biodiversity Heritage Library, on the Internet Archive

    https://archive.org/details/scientificmemoir03memoread 2026-07-28

    Quoted verbatim from the item record: "Public domain. The BHL considers that this work is no longer under copyright protection".

  2. [A2]Class A

    Ada Lovelace, in The Babbage Engine

    Computer History Museum

    https://www.computerhistory.org/babbage/adalovelace/read 2026-07-28

    Recorded absence: the page carries the copyright notice "© Computer History Museum" and states no reuse licence. Nothing from it is reproduced here beyond two short quoted sentences with attribution.

  3. [A3]Class A

    Charles Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1864), page 136

    Getty Research Institute, on the Internet Archive

    https://archive.org/details/passagesfromlife00babbread 2026-07-28

    Recorded absence: no rights statement appears on the item record for this scan and the item metadata carries no rights field. Stated as an absence rather than papered over. The volume was printed in London in 1864 and its author died in 1871.

  4. [A4]Class A

    Babbage's Analytical Engine, 1834-1871. (Trial model), object number 1878-3

    Science Museum Group

    https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co62245/babbages-analytical-engine-1834-1871-trial-modelread 2026-07-28

    Quoted verbatim from the object record: "Data in the title, made, maker and details fields are released under Creative Commons Zero. Descriptions and all other text content are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence".

  5. [A5]Class A

    Book, "Sketch of the analytical engine invented by Charles Babbage, Esq.", object number 30209019357339, shelfmark Babbage Collection MENABREA

    Science Museum Group, Science Museum Library at Wroughton

    https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8652385/book-sketch-of-the-analytical-engine-invented-by-charles-babbage-esqread 2026-07-28

    Quoted verbatim from the object record: "Data in the title, made, maker and details fields are released under Creative Commons Zero. Descriptions and all other text content are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence".

  6. [A6]Class A

    King, Ada Augusta, (1815-1852) Countess of Lovelace, mathematician, papers and corresp; reference Dep. Lovelace Byron; covering dates 1817-1852; record N13554981

    The National Archives, Discovery catalogue, recording a holding of Oxford University: Bodleian Library, Special Collections

    https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/API/records/v1/details/N13554981read 2026-07-28

    Recorded absence: the catalogue record returned at this URL carries no rights statement of its own. What is used from it is a finding-aid fact, namely the repository, the reference and the covering dates.

  7. [A7]Class A

    Ada Lovelace, collection people record cp38764

    Science Museum Group

    https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/people/cp38764/ada-lovelaceread 2026-07-28

    Recorded absence and its context: this people record displayed no rights statement when read. Science Museum Group object records read the same day carry the statement "Data in the title, made, maker and details fields are released under Creative Commons Zero. Descriptions and all other text content are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence".

  8. [A8]Class A

    Scientific memoirs, v. 3 (1843)

    Natural History Museum Library, London (digitized for the Biodiversity Heritage Library)

    https://archive.org/details/scientificmemoir03memoread 2026-07-29

    Public domain. The BHL considers that this work is no longer under copyright protection.

Clearance

How this record was cleared

Every record in the Hall passes the same gate stack before a page is compiled, and the result is published rather than merely filed.

Died
1852
Public domain basis
Every text quoted on this page was printed in 1843 or in 1864 and is out of copyright by age. The 1843 volume's scan carries the Biodiversity Heritage Library statement "Public domain. The BHL considers that this work is no longer under copyright protection". Lovelace died in 1852 and Babbage in 1871, so neither printed text is in copyright in the United States or the United Kingdom. Catalogue descriptions quoted from the Science Museum Group are used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence that group states on its object records.
Estate and licensing screen
Screened 2026-07-28 across every institution consulted for this record. The only custodial claim found over Lovelace material is archival rather than proprietary: Oxford University: Bodleian Library, Special Collections holds the Lovelace Byron deposit. No licensing agent, rights holder or enforcing estate appears in any source cited here, and the texts quoted were printed in 1843 and 1864.
Trademark screen
Screened 2026-07-28. Two present day uses of the name were considered as possible collisions: the Ada programming language and Ada Lovelace Day. Neither was run against a trademark register in this pass, so this record asserts no clearance for either and claims no affiliation with either; it uses the personal name of a woman who died in 1852, sells nothing under that name, and names no product or event. Running the register search is the open item on this record.
Dignity screen
The death is stated once, as a year in the schedule, because no source read for this record settles anything narrower than the year, and it is never used as a hook. Her father's fame is not the story and appears nowhere on this page. The one thing historians actively argue over, the size of her share in the Notes, is rendered as an argument and refused in both directions; the record does not resolve it for her or against her.
Gate stack run
2026-07-28

The machine record

The structured representation this page is built from, printed field by field.

Every row below is a field of this figure's module, printed with its value and the citation key that settles it. Nothing here is summarised or inferred. It is shown as text for a reader: this page emits no machine-readable metadata, and it is excluded from the sitemap, from llms.txt, and from search indexes.

identity

slugada-lovelace
handleada-lovelace
nameAugusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace
disciplineMathematics
entered2026-07-28
accent#3A2C6B

claims

label"NOTES BY THE TRANSLATOR." That is the whole of the credit the 1843 volume prints over the longer half of the article, and its contents page names only L. F. Menabrea. [A1]
turnThe Notes run longer than the memoir they annotate. The only name at their foot is three letters, "A. A. L." [A1]
lifespan1815 to 1852 [A7]
statementThe record of Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, begins in a printed volume that names her nowhere and prints her work at length. [A1]

story[7]

story[0]The memoir this record turns on was published in French in the Bibliotheque Universelle de Geneve, number 82, October 1842, a line the English printing carries at the head of the article. [A1]
story[1]The English text appeared in London the following year as Article XXIX of Scientific Memoirs, Volume III, beginning at printed page 666. [A1]
story[2]A second and longer text follows the translation under the heading "NOTES BY THE TRANSLATOR.", beginning at printed page 691, and the volume's own index enters both parts in a single line: "Analytical engine of Mr. C. Babbage, account of the, 666; notes on, 691." [A1]
story[3]There are seven notes, lettered A to G, each anchored to the page of the memoir it annotates, and the initials "A. A. L." stand at the foot of them. [A1]
story[4]Note G begins at printed page 722 and sets out the computation by the Engine of the Numbers of Bernoulli; a caption in the same volume directs the reader to it as "Note G. (page 722 et seq.)". [A1]
story[5]In 1864 Babbage printed his own account of how those notes came to exist, and recorded that "The notes of the Countess of Lovelace extend to about three times the length of the original memoir." [A3]
story[6]The machine the notes describe was never finished: the Science Museum Group records of its surviving trial model that "Only part of the machine as a trial piece was completed before Babbage's death in 1871." [A4]

schedule[8]

schedule[0] [A7]

span1815
titleBorn
detailBirthplace recorded by the Science Museum Group as London, Greater London, England, United Kingdom.

schedule[1] [A7]

span1833
titleIntroduced to Charles Babbage
detailThe collection record prints the entry as "1833 - introduced to Charles Babbage by Mary Fairfax Somerville".

schedule[2] [A7]

span1835
titleMarriage
detailThe same record prints "1835 - married William King, eighth Baron King of Ockham, who became the Earl of Lovelace in 1838".

schedule[3] [A1]

spanOctober 1842
titleThe source memoir appears in French
detailThe 1843 printing dates the memoir it translates to the Bibliotheque Universelle de Geneve, number 82, October 1842, at the head of the article.

schedule[4] [A1]

span1843
titleTranslation and Notes printed
detailArticle XXIX of Scientific Memoirs, Volume III, London: the translation from printed page 666, the Notes by the Translator from printed page 691.

schedule[5] [A1]

span1843
titleNote G
detailThe last of the seven notes begins at printed page 722 and works through the computation by the Engine of the Numbers of Bernoulli.

schedule[6] [A7]

span1852
titleDeath
detailThe Science Museum Group collection record gives the dates 1815 to 1852.

schedule[7] [A3]

span1864
titleBabbage prints an account of the collaboration
detailPassages from the Life of a Philosopher, page 136, under the running head The Countess of Lovelace's Notes, sets out how the notes were made and how long they ran.

figures[5]

figures[0] [A1]

label7 notes
detailLettered A to G, each headed with the page of the memoir it annotates: 674, 676, 677, 680, 684, 688 and 689.

figures[1] [A1]

label666 to 731
detailThe printed page span of Article XXIX. The translation opens at 666, the Notes by the Translator at 691, and the volume's index enters both: "Analytical engine of Mr. C. Babbage, account of the, 666; notes on, 691."

figures[2] [A3]

labelabout 3 times
detailBabbage's printed measure of the Notes against the memoir in 1864: "about three times the length of the original memoir".

figures[3] [A1]

label3 letters
detailThe whole of the signature. The initials "A. A. L." are printed at the foot of the notes.

figures[4] [A1]

label0 named credits
detailA full text read of the scanned 1843 volume returns no instance of Lovelace, Ada or Augusta anywhere in it.

works[4]

works[0] [A1]

titleSketch of the Analytical Engine invented by Charles Babbage, Esq., with Notes by the Translator
year1843
noteArticle XXIX of Scientific Memoirs, Volume III, London. The translation of L. F. Menabrea's memoir runs from printed page 666 and the Notes by the Translator from printed page 691. The volume's contents page credits Menabrea alone; the printed article carries no translator's name at all.
urlhttps://archive.org/details/scientificmemoir03memo

works[1] [A1]

titleNote G
year1843
noteThe last of the seven notes, beginning at printed page 722, on the computation by the Engine of the Numbers of Bernoulli. Its second paragraph begins: "The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate any thing. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform."
urlhttps://archive.org/download/scientificmemoir03memo/scientificmemoir03memo_djvu.txt

works[2] [A6]

titleLovelace Byron papers
year1817 to 1852
noteAn archival deposit, not a publication. The National Archives Discovery catalogue records it under the reference Dep. Lovelace Byron, held by Oxford University: Bodleian Library, Special Collections, described as papers and corresp, with covering dates 1817 to 1852.
urlhttps://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/API/records/v1/details/N13554981

works[3] [A5]

titleThe Science Museum Library copy of the 1843 printing
year1843
noteObject number 30209019357339, shelfmark Babbage Collection MENABREA, held at the Science Museum Library at Wroughton. Printed by Richard and John E. Taylor, London, and bound with the Addition to the memoir of M Menabrea on the analytical engine.
urlhttps://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8652385/book-sketch-of-the-analytical-engine-invented-by-charles-babbage-esq

answers[5]

answers[0] [A1]

qHow does the 1843 volume credit the translator?
aWith three letters. The initials "A. A. L." are printed at the foot of the notes, and a full text read of the volume finds no fuller name anywhere in it.

answers[1] [A3]

qHow long are the Notes compared with the memoir they annotate?
aBabbage, printing his own account in 1864, put it this way: "The notes of the Countess of Lovelace extend to about three times the length of the original memoir."

answers[2] [A1]

qWhat is Note G?
aThe last of the seven notes, beginning at printed page 722, setting out the computation by the Engine of the Numbers of Bernoulli.

answers[3] [A4]

qDid the machine described in the Notes exist?
aNo. The Science Museum Group records of the surviving trial model that "Only part of the machine as a trial piece was completed before Babbage's death in 1871."

answers[4] [A2]

qWhat is still argued about this record?
aThe size of her share in the Notes. The Computer History Museum states it plainly: "The collaboration with Babbage was close and biographers debate the extent and originality of Ada's contribution."

declines[4]

declines[0] [A2]

mythThat she was the first computer programmer, as a settled fact.
refusalThe record will not print that as a fact. The Computer History Museum records both halves of the position on one page: that "Ada is often referred to as 'the first programmer'." and that "The collaboration with Babbage was close and biographers debate the extent and originality of Ada's contribution." A description historians are still arguing over is rendered here as a description, never as a finding.
checkedThe Computer History Museum's Ada Lovelace page, read on 2026-07-28. Both sentences stand on it.

declines[1] [A3]

mythThat Babbage wrote the Notes and she only translated them.
refusalRefused as firmly as the claim above it, and from the opposite side. Babbage's own printed account of 1864 says of the illustrations that "I suggested several, but the selection was entirely her own", and that the algebraic working out of the problems was hers too, excepting the one on the numbers of Bernoulli, which he offered to do and which came back to him corrected: "This she sent back to me for an amendment, having detected a grave mistake which I had made in the process." The extent question stays open, and this record settles it in neither direction.
checkedPassages from the Life of a Philosopher, page 136, in the Getty Research Institute scan, read on 2026-07-28.

declines[2] [A4]

mythThat she built, ran, or operated a computing machine.
refusalThere was no such machine to run. The Science Museum Group's record of the trial model states that "Only part of the machine as a trial piece was completed before Babbage's death in 1871." The Notes describe a machine on paper, and this record claims nothing beyond the paper.
checkedScience Museum Group object 1878-3, Babbage's Analytical Engine trial model, read on 2026-07-28.

declines[3] [A1]

mythThat the 1843 publication carries her name.
refusalIt does not. The contents page credits L. F. Menabrea alone, the second half of the article is headed "NOTES BY THE TRANSLATOR.", and the signature is the initials "A. A. L." The name is absent from the printed article and from the volume around it.
checkedThe full text of the scanned 1843 volume, searched end to end on 2026-07-28 for Lovelace, Ada and Augusta. The count for each is zero.

sources[8]

sources.A1 [A1]

clsA
institutionNatural History Museum Library, London, via the Biodiversity Heritage Library, on the Internet Archive
titleScientific Memoirs, Volume III (London, 1843), Article XXIX, Sketch of the Analytical Engine invented by Charles Babbage, Esq., by L. F. Menabrea, with Notes by the Translator, printed pages 666 to 731
urlhttps://archive.org/details/scientificmemoir03memo
accessed2026-07-28
rightsQuoted verbatim from the item record: "Public domain. The BHL considers that this work is no longer under copyright protection".

sources.A2 [A2]

clsA
institutionComputer History Museum
titleAda Lovelace, in The Babbage Engine
urlhttps://www.computerhistory.org/babbage/adalovelace/
accessed2026-07-28
rightsRecorded absence: the page carries the copyright notice "© Computer History Museum" and states no reuse licence. Nothing from it is reproduced here beyond two short quoted sentences with attribution.

sources.A3 [A3]

clsA
institutionGetty Research Institute, on the Internet Archive
titleCharles Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1864), page 136
urlhttps://archive.org/details/passagesfromlife00babb
accessed2026-07-28
rightsRecorded absence: no rights statement appears on the item record for this scan and the item metadata carries no rights field. Stated as an absence rather than papered over. The volume was printed in London in 1864 and its author died in 1871.

sources.A4 [A4]

clsA
institutionScience Museum Group
titleBabbage's Analytical Engine, 1834-1871. (Trial model), object number 1878-3
urlhttps://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co62245/babbages-analytical-engine-1834-1871-trial-model
accessed2026-07-28
rightsQuoted verbatim from the object record: "Data in the title, made, maker and details fields are released under Creative Commons Zero. Descriptions and all other text content are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence".

sources.A5 [A5]

clsA
institutionScience Museum Group, Science Museum Library at Wroughton
titleBook, "Sketch of the analytical engine invented by Charles Babbage, Esq.", object number 30209019357339, shelfmark Babbage Collection MENABREA
urlhttps://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8652385/book-sketch-of-the-analytical-engine-invented-by-charles-babbage-esq
accessed2026-07-28
rightsQuoted verbatim from the object record: "Data in the title, made, maker and details fields are released under Creative Commons Zero. Descriptions and all other text content are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence".

sources.A6 [A6]

clsA
institutionThe National Archives, Discovery catalogue, recording a holding of Oxford University: Bodleian Library, Special Collections
titleKing, Ada Augusta, (1815-1852) Countess of Lovelace, mathematician, papers and corresp; reference Dep. Lovelace Byron; covering dates 1817-1852; record N13554981
urlhttps://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/API/records/v1/details/N13554981
accessed2026-07-28
rightsRecorded absence: the catalogue record returned at this URL carries no rights statement of its own. What is used from it is a finding-aid fact, namely the repository, the reference and the covering dates.

sources.A7 [A7]

clsA
institutionScience Museum Group
titleAda Lovelace, collection people record cp38764
urlhttps://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/people/cp38764/ada-lovelace
accessed2026-07-28
rightsRecorded absence and its context: this people record displayed no rights statement when read. Science Museum Group object records read the same day carry the statement "Data in the title, made, maker and details fields are released under Creative Commons Zero. Descriptions and all other text content are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence".

sources.A8 [A8]

clsA
institutionNatural History Museum Library, London (digitized for the Biodiversity Heritage Library)
titleScientific memoirs, v. 3 (1843)
urlhttps://archive.org/details/scientificmemoir03memo
accessed2026-07-29
rightsPublic domain. The BHL considers that this work is no longer under copyright protection.

clearance

died1852
diedSrcA7
pdBasisEvery text quoted on this page was printed in 1843 or in 1864 and is out of copyright by age. The 1843 volume's scan carries the Biodiversity Heritage Library statement "Public domain. The BHL considers that this work is no longer under copyright protection". Lovelace died in 1852 and Babbage in 1871, so neither printed text is in copyright in the United States or the United Kingdom. Catalogue descriptions quoted from the Science Museum Group are used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence that group states on its object records.
estateScreened 2026-07-28 across every institution consulted for this record. The only custodial claim found over Lovelace material is archival rather than proprietary: Oxford University: Bodleian Library, Special Collections holds the Lovelace Byron deposit. No licensing agent, rights holder or enforcing estate appears in any source cited here, and the texts quoted were printed in 1843 and 1864.
trademarkScreened 2026-07-28. Two present day uses of the name were considered as possible collisions: the Ada programming language and Ada Lovelace Day. Neither was run against a trademark register in this pass, so this record asserts no clearance for either and claims no affiliation with either; it uses the personal name of a woman who died in 1852, sells nothing under that name, and names no product or event. Running the register search is the open item on this record.
dignityThe death is stated once, as a year in the schedule, because no source read for this record settles anything narrower than the year, and it is never used as a hook. Her father's fame is not the story and appears nowhere on this page. The one thing historians actively argue over, the size of her share in the Notes, is rendered as an argument and refused in both directions; the record does not resolve it for her or against her.
checkedAt2026-07-28

HISTORICAL RECORD · A DEMONSTRATION

A demonstration record, compiled from public archives. Every line on this page carries its source. Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace did not write it; the institutions cited here did.

Corrections are wanted, and they are treated the way a falsehood on any Source of You page is treated: they jump the queue. If a line here is wrong, or a source is misread, write to hello@sourceofyou.com and the page comes down while it is checked.