Can you read cursive? The National Archives wants your help

Fox 5 ^ | 1/14/25

[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Which historical documents must be transcribed?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.

[Mogger]

Would you ‘trust’ them to transcribe our historical documents truthfully, honestly, correctly? Or do you think that more than a few would see this as an opportunity to literally rewrite history.

We know leftists will do this as they do with Wikipedia and everywhere else they get a chance.

A simple way to fix this is have images of the original documents beside the transcriptions so anyone who is interested can check the transcriptions.

History books written in the first few years documented that the last holdouts against the Nazis were the conservatives.

Sometime between the late 1940s and early 1950s leftist professors, the ones usually writing history books got the bright idea of calling Nazis "right wing", and leftists have tarred conservatives with that ever since.

[vikingd00d]

>>Parents are in charge of our education system

You sure about that? The last time parents objected to gay pornography as required reading, the Biden DOJ deemed them domestic terrorists.

[healy61]

Yes. The tech has been available for a couple years. They have been working on text from the Vatican library written in Latin. The computer needs a learning phase, but can get it down.

[LilFarmer]

I taught my children (homeschooled) to read and write cursive starting around first grade, using Abeka’s curriculum. One of the reasons why was so they could read the original Constitution.

On a different note, I was going through my in-laws ancestry research, and there were some legal documents, wills, land sales, etc. that were really difficult to translate. They did the best they could but had to leave some things blank.

[bert]

I have read and transcribed several of the Jefferson papers which are depositions from 1775 or so. The problem is not cursive but rather the quality and variability of the cursive script.

Further there are idioms that make understanding the phrasing difficult.

[ChessExpert]

“Good job for retired pharmacists.”

It’s always been a joke about Doctor’s handwriting. I’m coming to the conclusion that the poor handwriting, signature especially, is intentional. It is protection in case of a lawsuit. “I didn’t prescribe that.”

[redfreedom]

“Parents are in charge of our education system”

That was decades ago. The reason kids are so dumb is because parents are no longer in charge. The federal Dept of Education is running the show along with the teachers union. Has been for some time.

It’s all about indoctrinating kids, dumbing them down and making queers out of them. Parents in all 50 states certainly cannot be doing this, especially the red states.

That’s why top Republicans want to get rid of it.

[trebb]

IOW - those who started school within 3 years after Carter instituted the Department of Edumacation....I hear 62% of later ones can read “Cursive”, but only if it’s printed...the rest can’t read nuthin....

[rightwingcrazy]

“an opportunity that might peak your interest”

OK, my interest is piqued, but it’s not close to a peak. Is that good enough?

[stanne]

“That was decades ago. The reason kids are so dumb is because parents are no longer in charge.”

No. It’s now. The reason kids are so dumb is because parents are in charge

[Bigg Red]

mark

[stanne]

“The last time parents objected to gay pornography as required reading, the Biden DOJ deemed them domestic terrorists.”

Parents don’t object to any of it. They’ve abdicated responsibility. That doesn’t make them not in charge it makes them in charge of all of this mess

God gives you a child. You think you don’t have to talk to Him about how you raised the child? About how you allowed the school system take over educating the child?

How silly

[bert]

My grandson not only does not write cursive, he seldom writes at all. He has several tools on which he can and does write what ever is needed. He actually doesn’t have many text books. All are on line. Homework is accomplished on his lap top and submitted directly to the teacher’s data base.

He was provided his first computer in school in the fifth grade.

Paper in his world is obsolete. Cursive writing is archaic irrelevance

[Gnome1949]

My wife has heard about this and is interested in doing this. She has had a long interest in genealogy.

Why do Americans have to do this without being paid?

My hunch is the people employed by the National Archives are functionally illiterate and cannot even read the documents in their care, even if documents are NOT written in cursive.

The federal government is paying billions to illegals to house, feed, clothe, educate them and give them health care. They get free airline trips and free cell phones. They get free reloadable debit cards filled with free money. They don’t speak or write English. They are uneducated.

They don’t lift a finger to earn this hugely expensive, taxpayer-funded assistance.

If interpreting old documents written in cursive is important to the National Archives, PROVIDE PAY TO THOSE WHO STRUGGLE TO TRANSLATE THEM ! Senior citizens don’t have to be made fools by the corrupt federal government run by illiterates.

Americans should not be played for suckers by these federal scoundrels.

[bk1000]

I have a bag full of ledger receipts written in Spencer script. Beautiful, flowing, if not a bit ponderous. It can be difficult to read.

[ExSafecracker]

I can’t Read my own cursive.

I’m in that same boat. I’m 76 years old, in my time schools taught writing cursive. I was never good at it, but I managed to get by.
These days the only cursive I use is my signature and that is not readable either.
Now my printing is nothing to write home about either.

[mairdie]

Cursive of that period is VERY hard to read. For my Henry Livingston Night Before Christmas research, I spent 10 years collecting documents from that period from all around the country. I don't know the number of times I was forced to beg for help from the professors I worked with. And even THEY couldn't read a lot of it. It was guesswork and creatively putting possibilities together from surrounding context. It wasn't just sloppy handwriting. There were letters that were written differently than what we write today and even when you were comfortable with those, the sloppiness was hard to work with.

Think of census records that came later. Even with people of the period transcribing, the variation in name spelling is amazing based on transcribers' guesswork on the writing.

During Civil War period, it was standard practice for a clerk to turn a letter sideways and for a person with extravangantly beautiful handwriting to write who the letter was from and who it was to because many of the letters were almost impossible to read.

1773 Letter to fiancee Sally Welles with one of the earliest uses of Happy Christmas, original text of NBC.

1775 Letter while Major Henry was with the Rev Army invading Canada

1865 Letters from my Great grandfather, then Major Henry L. Burnett, who was running the investigation into the assassination of President Lincoln for Secretary of War Stanton. He was a Special Judge Advocate during the trial, and put together the Library of Congress records after the trial.

[ConservaTexan]

From the Greatest Generation to the Dumbest Generation in 100 years...

[4yearlurker]

My two grand daughters (8 and 12 years old) are learning cursive in their little Catholic School her in SW Pennsylvania. I have no problem reading and writing cursive so I teach them all I know.

[mewzilla]

Depends...

Woke AI better than woke humans...

Think it’s a wash there.