FromthePage.com

From the Page is a platform for crowdsourcing transcriptions of records of historical significance, particularly handwritten records that are less easily transcribed by optical character recognition, etc. Archives, special collections, state and provincial archives, public libraries, and digital humanities projects upload scanned documents to FromthePage.com; volunteers then transcribe, review, correct, and comment on the material as needed. FromthePage.com was launched in 2005 by two Rice University computer science alumni with an interest in family history.[1] The founders were inspired in part by "their involvement in Wikipedia's early days".[2] As of 2023, 2.1 million pages had been transcribed by volunteers for 110 participating institutions.[3]

The platform has been used by Colorado State University Libraries,[4] East Hampton Library's special collection of Long Island material,[5] Harvard's Colonial North America project,[6] Indiana State Archives,[7][8] Maryland State Archives,[9] the Nantucket Historical Society's archive of American whaling,[10] and University of Southern Mississippi's Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi project.[11] The business records of American slave traders Rice C. Ballard[12] and Seth Woodroof[13] are among the many transcription projects of public interest hosted by the site.

  1. ^ "About Us - FromThePage Blog". 2022-03-24. Archived from the original on 2022-03-24. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  2. ^ "Conversations at the Washington Library: 200. Transcribing From The Page with Sara and Ben Brumfield on Apple Podcasts". Apple Podcasts. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  3. ^ "FromThePage". fromthepage.com. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  4. ^ "Decoding Delph's Diaries: Volunteers needed to transcribe Colorado water history - 17 Jan, 2020 - By Jenna Allen".
  5. ^ Moore, Moriah. "Item of the Week: Logbook of the Daniel Webster | The East Hampton Star". www.easthamptonstar.com. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  6. ^ "History, Crowdsourced by Diane E. Booton NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2020". harvardmagazine.com.
  7. ^ Box, Terri (2020-03-30). "Indiana Archives and Records Administration Available Online". WBIW. Retrieved 2023-10-25.
  8. ^ Jarnecke, Meaghan (2020-09-22). "Crowdsource Indexing: Virtual Volunteering Means Big Index Projects Keep on Moving at the Indiana State Archives". The Hoosier Genealogist: Connections. 60 (2): 62–68.
  9. ^ Higgins II, David M. (2019-08-07). "The Maryland State Archives seeks people to transcribe Marriage Certificates". The Southern Maryland Chronicle. Retrieved 2023-10-25.
  10. ^ Hester, Jessica Leigh (2020-04-07). "Even More Ways to Help Librarians and Archivists From Home". Atlas Obscura. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  11. ^ "Catching up with Dr. Stephanie Seal Walters, USM Digital Liaison in the Humanities". www.usm.edu. 2020-11-18. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  12. ^ "Rice C. Ballard Papers". fromthepage.com. Retrieved 2023-10-26.
  13. ^ "Jones Memorial Library Manuscripts MS1047". FromThePage. Retrieved 2023-10-26.