I was enjoying Quilting Thursday at the Harrogate chapel a
few years ago when a friend popped in and asked for my help. He was indexing names
from a Spanish census on a computer across the hall and was stuck on a blurry
word. For hundreds of years governments and churches have kept records that are
more precious than gold to people searching for their roots. Most of these
records are inaccessible in their original form, so volunteers painstakingly convert
the handwritten pages to a searchable format. I deciphered the word in question
and was instantly hooked. Since then I’ve transcribed more than 15,000 names; names
that were hidden in handwritten paper records in distant repositories and are
now instantly searchable by computer. I spend a few minutes a day working at my
own pace, but I get an enormous sense of satisfaction. Who knows but someone
somewhere may be indexing one of the people missing from my family tree right
now!
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