Recover Lost Documents

Through an ambitious worldwide project, millions of documents in libraries and archives, visible in faded print, dust-filled albums or on microfilm, are being transcribed by dedicated genealogists and hobbyists and placed on the Web.

Julian Guthrie stated in his report for the San Francisco Gate that Ancestry.com has started the World Archives Project to expand its current database of about seven billion historical records. Documents such as U.S. naturalization records, slave manifests from the 1800s and newspaper index cards from England will be accessible online free of charge.

The company estimates that about 35 million documents will be transcribed via the World Archives Project this year.

Tim Sullivan, CEO of Ancestry.com, stated that the company looks to invest in digitizing records and creating searchable records online. What they are doing with the project is inviting the community, which is made up of deeply passionate hobbyists, to transcribe the documents.

Photographic images of the records will be available to subscribers to Ancestry.com, while the transcribed database will be available to everyone.

Elizabeth Shown Mills, a fellow of the American Society of Genealogists and the National Genealogical Society, said that access to records such as naturalization documents and slave manifests has only been available in very limited places. Mills said that you usually would have to travel to specific libraries or order the microfilm, so to be able to access these records online is a great step in the right direction.

The project has already about six million documents that have been transcribed by 11,000 volunteers in 65 countries. Documents range from marriage records and slave manifests to naturalization cards.