Calling All Witches!

There is a call for witches to help with Chicago’s Newberry Library need to crowdsource translations for three 17th-century manuscripts of spells, charms and magic.

The three manuscripts, “The Book of Magical Charms,” “The Commonplace Book” and “Cases of Conscience Concerning Witchcraft” are currently available at “Transcribing Faith” portal.

In the 17th century manuscript, The Book of Magical Charms, you can transcribe, edit others' efforts, or translate Latin to English.

The Commonplace Book appears to have been started in the 15th century and contains many diverse topics from morality issues to odd events and religion.

 You can transcribe or edit others work in Cases of Conscience Concerning Witchcraft  which is part of the Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits by Increase Mather, an influential Puritan minister and president of Harvard who also administered the Salem Witch Trials.

Continue reading Library seeks witches to translate 17th-century spellbook

Crowdsourcing Genealogy Documents at LAC

Page 1 of the 1818 Coltman Report

"In the spring of 2016, Library and Archives Canada (LAC) digitized A General Statement and Report relative to the Disturbances in the Indian Territories of British North America, more commonly known as “the Coltman Report.” Its digitization was in support of the 200th-anniversary events commemorating the Battle of Seven Oaks, organized by the Manitoba Métis Federation in June 2016." [Beth Greenhorn. November 29, 2016]

To support this effort, LAC (Library and Archives Canada) started a crowdsourcing project to transcribe the only copy of the 1818 521-page report. According to LAC "the entire report was transcribed within less than a month. In addition to the transcription, every page has tags related to the individuals, dates, locations and specific events recorded during Coltman’s investigation. A PDF of Coltman’s report is available in the database and is fully searchable. Each entry is accompanied by a link to the corresponding digitized page from the report."
 
Historical inaccuracies that had previously been perpetrated and spread were corrected by this transcription project. Read the full details about this in Transcribing the Coltman Report – Crowdsourcing at Library and Archives Canada

You Can Transcribe it! NARA's Transcription Project

NARA Transcription Pilot Project

Great news. You can now join the National Archives Transcription Pilot Project  and help transcribe documents. It's very easy, in fact I just went in and typed out one page of a document in less than 15 minutes.

The document I transcribed was the 1851 Petition of Edward Gorsuch found in a Fugitive Slave Petition Book. Edward lived in Baltimore County Maryland and the first page (which I transcribed) mentions the full names (first and last) of several of his slaves as well as their ages 


There are 3 categories of documents - beginner, intermediate and advanced. I've transcribed hundreds or possibly thousands of documents over the years so I jumped into advanced.  You can enlarge the page you are reading and the scans are crystal clear so it truly isn't difficult.

If you're just starting out or the document you chose is difficult, you can leave and pick another one. This is a great way to contribute a few minutes or more of your time and help make these historic documents more accessible to all.