Cheshire Transcribing

[gengeek]

Hello all,
I am the new Coordinator for Cheshire, and have just been contacted by my first willing volunteer! As yet it would seem that nothing yet been transcribed for this county; has anyone any tips on how to proceed, and any advice to give her?

Many thanks

Claire Bayley

[Pam Downes]

Hi Claire,
Only twenty-one people at the time of this edit (real time 9.52am 8th Sept) have read my original message which was
"Are you the Co-ordinator for a specific project? because the Cheshire FHS have transcribed a lot of stuff for Cheshire."
I am now awake and have read the forum heading, and am feeling a right idiot. (My excuse is that I found your message by clicking on 'all posts by gengeek' and not by clicking on the actual forum heading.)
However I'm currently transcribing some details from a marriage register for a period of twenty years so I'm gradually getting used to the vicar's handwriting but at first I found I had more question marks than actual names. Not helped by the fact that ink from the other side was showing through. So if someone is totally new to transcribing, based on my experience I would say:
Choose a register for a place that you're interested in - home town, where your grandparents lived. (I'm doing the one for my home town and every time I see the names Bagley and Ladds I just know that their occupation is likely to be fishermen - like it was when I was young - and it's the little things like that that help keep you interested in what you're doing.)
Choose a 'new style' register sooner than one from the 1700s.
If you're transcribing marriages after 1837 you can often refer to FreeBMD to help confirm your opinion of a name , as well as looking at the signatures of the happy couple .
Do a 'block' from a register e.g. at least a hundred entries, so you can get a 'feel' for the writing. If you can't decide whether it's Barton, Burton, or Baxter, initially enter all your options (I use a colour on that entry so that it stands out) then when you've finished the block go back and check all the entries (even the non-queries!).
Good luck.
Pam

[Kirk Dawson]

Claire

I have 135 volunteers working on Norfolk with me. I would like to confirm some of the ideas presented by Pam.
I always start a new transcriber off with a post 1813 burial register. They are the easiest to read and transcribe. I then recommend the post 1754 marriage registers. Once again these are fairly easy. Then I get them to do the post 1813 baptisms register. This is usually a little tougher, for some reason the Vicar always seems to be in a hurry when he gets to the surname. However by this time the transcriber has become familiar with the family names and they are much easier to read. Next I get them to work on the combined baptism and burial register that many parishes have covering the post 1754 period. Lastly I get them to take the most recent combined register saving the oldest for last.
I urge them to use all available information to "read" the writing.
I have a number of information sheets that I use with new transcribers. Happy to share these with you. Contact me off line for them.
Lastly I have one member of my team who is also in the process of transcribing a Cheshire parish. Will send you her email address off line.

I have a number of management tools that I use to "keep a track on what is going on" if you are interested.