Writing the past: transcribing handwritten documents from World War One
Over the past three years, thousands of handwritten documents have been contributed to the Europeana 1914-1918 website. These range from hurriedly scribbled messages from exhausted soldiers at the front to their loved ones at home, to long, detailed letters about daily life from worried wives and desperate parents; from quickly penned notes full of cryptic abbreviations made by officers about battle movements, to personal dairies kept by nurses to make sense of the horrors before them. These firsthand accounts from all over Europe tell us, in different languages, the story of the Great War from a whole range of perspectives.
A letter contributed to Europeana 1914-1918 by Christian Strauss (CC BY-SA)
Unfortunately, many of these precious accounts are very difficult to read. Creases and folds, rips and tears, mud and even blood stains can all make these century-old papers almost impossible to decipher. Even if the documents are in good condition, and have been properly scanned, the script can be difficult to interpret, particularly when old fashioned calligraphy is used, or a document has been penned by an inexperienced writer with illegible handwriting.
To be truly useful to readers, they need to be fully transcribed so that they can be read easily. Europeana’s partner Facts & Files, a private historical research institute from Berlin, has developed a tool precisely for that purpose: Transcribe e1914-1918 - the prototype of an online transcription tool funded by the German Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
Image: Facts and Files, CC BY-SA
The transcription tool will be used in a crowdsourcing project which aims to gradually improve the quality of transcriptions by several people consecutively working online. The idea is to raise awareness not only about the great importance of handling original historical sources, but about the difficulties of doing so too.
Workshops will be organized to help nurture teamwork and improve the participants’ media skills. At the end of each workshop, the participants will discuss the results and reflect on their personal experiences while transcribing sources. They will also be encouraged to explore the Europeana 1914‑1918 site and to participate in a transcription competition (transcribathon) planned to take place in 2015 or 2016.
Image: Facts and Files, CC BY-SA
On 2 July 2015, the first workshop was organized for 20 interested students from the “Primo Levi Gymnasium” in Berlin as part of a Day of Social Sciences. Throughout the workshop, the 15 to 16 year old students learned a variety of media skills combining use of modern technology with expertise on working with original historical documents.
After an introduction into different old scripts such as Kurrent (an old form of German language handwriting based on late medieval cursive writing) and Sütterlin (the last widely used form of Kurrent) as well as different transcription techniques, the students could start transcribing the documents online in small groups working alternately on different texts. Each group was also introduced to the technical side of digitising historical documents. The students were able to experience working with primary historical documents as a process from start to finish, and in an interactive way - carrying out research, digitizing and transcribing sources and evaluating them too.
Image: Facts and Files, CC BY-SA
Original documents digitized at Europeana 1914-1918 collection days were used as source material. The budding historians were also encouraged to ask their own families about material from the First World War which could be incorporated in the workshop. This brought home the sometimes abstract history of the War for the students so they could experience it through the individual testimonies and private material they had brought in.
The students thoroughly enjoyed the workshop, and even wished they had had more time.
Quite a few, now they’ve got the hang of things, plan to continue working on the documents at home, and are keen to take part in a future transcribathon competition.
If you’re interested, you can look at results from the workshop, and you can also watch a short video report too.
If you would like to know more about the transcription tool or be involved in a transcribathon then please contact Mr Frank Drauschke from Facts & Files, via drauschke@factsandfiles.com (German or English).