Nova Scotia Archives issued a call to “all Armchair Archivists and Handwriting Experts.”
They have updated their Transcribe tool and are looking for volunteers to transcribe the handwritten Commissioner of Public Records — Refugee Negroes series.
The collection consists of original copies and transcripts of records relating to Black immigration and settlement in Nova Scotia, from the end of the Revolutionary War in 1783 to the final emancipation of enslaved Blacks in 1838.
Transcribe is the name of Nova Scotia Archives’ collaborative online workspace where the public can participate to help improve access to collections that document more than 300 years of Nova Scotia history, people, and culture.
According to the archives’ website, “Crowdsourcing empowers communities to participate in their own history. We invite you to be our partner in making our collections more visible and more accessible. Help us tell the story of all Nova Scotians.”
Easy to transcribe
If you have an hour or two available to transcribe, you may want to take a look. You can transcribe one page or several. It’s up to you.
It will take you less than a minute to get started on Nova Scotia Archives’ Transcribe page.
To begin, enter your full name, or you can even skip that part. No username or password required. No software to install.
Select the hyperlink, Commissioner of Public Records – Refugee Negroes, under Feature Collections on the Transcribe page.
Then click a page that is marked, “not started” — and start typing. You can zoom in to read an individual word, if necessary.
