Genealogy and cemetery databases benefited early on from the use of internet and online contributors.  I’ve watched my mother dig deep and discover vast amounts of information about her family history, collaborating with long lost cousins to add to each other’s files of information. I’ve seen a high school friend who was adopted as a baby use 23andme to discover and whole new, huge extensive family and I’ve watched as he continues to discover new family members. Without online resources connecting people from different, far away places, my mother and classmate would never even have attempted to do what they did and wouldn’t have discovered all they now know.

Here northern Virginia and in the nations capitol the University of Virginia School of Law set up crowd sourcing called Citizen Historians Wanted!! and the Library of Congress established By the People both using the public to transcribe historical documents for digital archives and databases. Various projects get posted with an end goal in mind as each site gives “citizen historians” a chance to do their thing and play their part. It’s a win-win.

The current project for By the People! is focused on the Suffragist movement while the UVA project is focused on legal manuscripts.

Crowdsourcing transcriptions of manuscript collections has become an important way for professional librarians and scholars at institutions and projects large and small to work with people interested in the past. 

—Arthur Morris

Although I’ve been tempted to join one of these projects I simply don’t have the free time yet.

After this class is finished however —