Not yet!
Posted on 01/14/2025 2:52:10 AM PST by EBH
If you have expertise in reading cursive, then there’s an opportunity that might peak your interest.
The National Archives is looking for someone who can transcribe (or classify) more than 200 years’ worth of U.S. documents.
Which historical documents must be transcribed? A team within the federal agency is looking for volunteers to read and transcribe records from Revolutionary War pension records that include applications and other records related to claims for pensions and bounty land warrants. Other historical materials include immigration documents from the 1890s and Japanese evacuation records.
What they're saying: Suzanne Isaacs, a community manager with the National Archives Catalog in Washington, D.C., tells USA Today in an interview that volunteers will help the agency transcribe or tag records in their catalog. They can simply pick a record that hasn’t been worked on, and it only requires a half hour a day or week to do it.
The National Archives is collaborating with the National Parks Service ahead of the nation's 250th birthday for a project, and they are reaching out to volunteers for assistance transcribing these documents.
How can I apply? What you can do: People interested in participating can sign up online at the National Archives website. There is no application to fill out, and all you have to do is register for a free user account in order to contribute to the National Archives Catalog, by clicking on the Log in / Sign Up button.
(Excerpt) Read more at fox5dc.com ...
At the very least, the ‘volunteers’ should be offered some kind of compensation.
Quite correct.
Photo....
I refuse to do cursive. My papa said if I went around doing it I wouldn’t be able to sit down for a long time.
The Linguistic Society of America said “Rachel Jeantel is multilingual and a native speaker of Haitian Creole, Spanish, and African American English”.
So that’s how that stuff gets posted around here... ;^)
He actually wasn’t very old at that point. He had joined the 2nd Cavalry and had had his horse roll over on him. As a lawyer, he just transferred to the Judge Advocate Corp and took the place of one who’d been arrested for keyhole peeping on girls. He was chosen for the investigation because he’d just gotten the death penalty for the Southern Conspirators in the Indianapolis trial about the Chicago prison camp breakout plans.
Handwriting differs so greatly even among written pieces by the same author. 5th great grandfather wrote in unintelligible squiggles on the back of envelopes but, even at 78 years of age, his handwriting was exquisite when writing in his daughter’s manuscript book. Know the feeling.
So those were Civil War letters you were reading. What sort of stories were they telling? Home dreaming, I imagine. Very exciting that you have those.
😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣..................
Great! It will be my big chance to rewrite that Declaration of something or other and tell you what TommyJeff really meant. The part about transgender rights, for example...
Had two g-g grandfathers in the CSA - both wrote letters home, very chatty about the war and the actions they were involved in. But talking about home as well. “You know how I didn’t used to like greens . . . I sure could relish a mess of them now!”
Sounds like fun.
I had two CSA great grandfathers - one was a captain in the 22nd Texas Cavalry. The other was also in the cavalry and fought against his father and brothers, who were on the other side. His youngest child was named Lee, after his general. Had horses shot out from under him but got thru the war, only to die in 1865, as did his wife. His children were raised by his wife’s brothers.
On the other side, had a great grandfather, Burnett, and a g2 grandfather, Burnett’s father-in-law, in the Union army, and the same on another branch.
That’s why I get so upset every time they try to rename a Southern fort or take down a military statue.
I’m guessing the difficult part is not that it all is in cursive writing per se but in the choices of words and phrasings and sentence structures.
Yes the two documents in comment #57 are “rather archaic for 1865” especially as the first was written in 1773 and the second in 1775, That “medial s” (my Chromebook just “corrected” the word “medial” to “medical” and I had to go back and correct the “correction”) which is much like the modern “s” script was in fact written by a young man to his fiance in 1773. That love letter apparently uses an abbreviation for 1773, and actually reads “30th/73-———” (unless it was 20th?). The second document clearly states “1775”.
I sure hope anyone trying to type translations of these old documents does NOT have a “self correcting machine”, or if they do they very carefully proofread what they have translated for modern “corrections.” They wouldn’t even have to be radical leftists trying to twist history, merely sloppy proofreaders with self correcting print functions.
Just my confusion - two different sets of letters, one linked and not shown - which I conflated.
My wife’s mother used to write her kid’s Christmas list in shorthand and place them on the refrigerator.
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