Carpathian Reflections
Volunteer Transcription Projects
This is a list of volunteer genealogy transcription projects that I created for an Australian Genealogy Facebook group since we are in lockdown due to COVID-19. It is focused on projects for an Australian context. However there are many projects that are applicable to other parts of the globe.
Carpathian Reflections (this website): This portal focuses on the Transcarpathian counties of the former Austro-Hungarian empire. Transcription projects open to the public include the Transcarpathian 1921 census, the Namestovo marriage project and projects on the public project transcriptions page. If you would like to view all of our transcribed data, you will need to be come a member. Membership is free upon completion of a transcription exercise. The default task is to transcribe 60 images of data from the Infantry Regiment 5 personnel records. If you would prefer to transcribe another project for your task you may contact me to discuss. To apply for membership click the SIGN-UP link or navigate to a member only page (which will direct you to the log-in page).
Family Search Web Indexing.: Help index vital records from around the world. Current projects include UK vital records, and Victorian will and probate records. Perhaps your ancestors came from other parts or Europe or Asia, Africa or Oceania. Perhaps you learnt German or French at school. There are records from every continent to be indexed. Do as much or as little as you want. I found it very helpful to index Hungarian, Slovak and Austrian records, as the knowledge I gained of the record structure and language helped in researching my ancestors from the Austro-Hungarian empire. All transcriptions are reviewed, so your efforts do not have to be perfect. https://www.familysearch.org/indexing/my-indexing
Bar Arolsen Archives: This database holds documentation of the Nazi atrocities of World War II. Documentation of people held in Displaced Persons Camps are also held by this archive. Help build a digital memorial to those persecuted by the Nazis. The 'Every Name Counts' project is important.
Billion Graves: Go take a walk! If you are near a cemetery, download the app from Google Play or similar and make your socially distant exercise productive by documenting gravestones. Or transcribe images uploaded by others. See https://billiongraves.com/
Geneanet is a genealogy portal that focuses on French genealogy. It also has a number of transcription projects (in English), and a cemetery and gravestone collection. There is also a section where members are invited to share images of birth death and marriage records.See https://en.geneanet.org/community/
MACSE is a Hungarian Family History group based in Budapest. Members have access to a considerable collection of Hungarian records that have been transcribed by MACSE members. As a member you can also contribute by transcribing vital records and contributing information to various member initiated projects. See www.macse.hu
Zooniverse: A great little portal for all sorts of citizen science and historical projects. Projects relevant to ANZ genealogists include Measuring the Anzacs (NZ army personnel records), and Criminal Character (Australian prison records). If you have have school age children stuck at home, there is an impressive array of science projects: Count penguins, track Whale and Dolphin calls, travel outerspace and visit galaxies. You may not be able to leave home but your mind can roam the universe.
World Archives projects
Cyndis List volunteer projects: https://www.cyndislist.com/volunteer-projects/miscellaneous/
The Australian War Memorial has transcription projects:
National Archives of Australia: Digital Volunteering
Digivol Australia:
Gould genealogy transcription project list:
Digital volunteering NSW State Library:
https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/.../resear.../digital-volunteering
The Real Face of White Australia: https://www.chinesemuseum.com.au/.../the-real-face-of....
The Ryerson Index: Offer to transcribe death notices from your local paper.
TROVE Australia: A collection of digitized newspapers from the National Library of Australia. Digitization has been done with optical character recognition technology which leads to many errors. Volunteer to correct text either anonymously or by registrering a user name.
The American Historical Association has projects at: https://www.historians.org/.../crowd-transcription...
The Smithsonian Institute https://transcription.si.edu/
Crowd Sourced Indexing: Includes some projects for Adelaide
https://csindexing.com/viewallprojects.php
Several UK transcription projects: https://www.familytreeforum.com/.../1276603-transcribing...
A list of known projects: https://repository.asu.edu/.../Known%20Projects...
From The Page: Another crowd-sourcing transcription site working with archives and libraries around the world. Projects relevant to genealogy include: transcription of cemetery records, prison register records, American civil war records, Baltimore marriages,
Reclaim the Records: An American group that aims to reclaim records useful for genealogy from various US state and federal government departments. This group has taken various state governments to court to force them to make records publicly available. The post the records on the Internet Archive.
https://www.reclaimtherecords.org/