Exciting news! We’re gearing up to make our next data release – around 16,000 new records. But we need your help … Provisionally we’re aiming for mid-July, as we’re cleaning up the dataset at the moment to make sure it’s as accurate and consistent as possible. This has been a long-term task, and we’re grateful […]
Tag Archives | volunteers
Use of Databases and Statistics in Historical Research
By Mike Esbester on January 11, 2021 in Blog, Family History, Guest contribution, Linking sources, Local History
This post was contributed by one of our anonymous volunteers, who has been doing the fiddly but essential job of going over the data and trying to spot and correct issues. This means that they’ve seen pretty much all of the project data (including the 1000s of cases currently being prepared for public release). As […]
Volunteers’ Week 6: What the volunteers’ work means to the project institutions
In this post, those working with the volunteers at each of the project institutions reflect on the project so far, and in particular on what the volunteers are doing and have brought to their institutions. Read the previous Volunteers’ Week post, from volunteer Cheryl Hunnisett, here. National Railway Museum: The Railway Museum’s volunteers have […]
On the Scope and Methods of Transcription
By Mike Esbester on December 30, 2019 in Accident aftermath, Blog, Guest contribution, Transcription Tuesday
The majority of this post was contributed by one of our anonymous volunteers, who had been doing the fiddly but essential job of going over the data and trying to spot and correct issues, as well as add in the historic counties in which accidents took place. We’re extremely grateful to the volunteer, both for […]
Volunteers’ Week 7: User appreciation!
For our final Volunteers’ Week post, we wanted to showcase just a few comments we’ve had on the project, from some of the people using the volunteers’ work in their own research. The comments come from academics, the rail industry, family historians and more – a tribute to the interest in the project and its […]
Volunteers’ Week 3: Coming Across My Great Grandfather in an Accident Register for 1917
We’ve been looking forward to featuring this post from Rosemary Leonard, one of the volunteers working at The National Archives on the railway company records. Rosemary mentioned the subject of this post, a remarkable coincidence, when we first met in a co-production session – so we’re really glad that she has ‘written it up’ for […]
Volunteers’ Week 4: One NRM volunteer’s experiences
In our fourth Volunteers’ Week blog post, National Railway Museum volunteer Philip James outlines some of what working on the project involves, and one case from our ongoing interwar extension which caught his eye. We’re indebted to Philip, who has been with us since the start and is now working on the third set of […]
Volunteers’ Week 2: Volunteering with the Railway Work, Life & Death Project
In this post, the second in our series for Volunteers’ Week – the first is here – National Railway Museum volunteer Chris Heaton outlines why he volunteers with the project and what he gets out of it. Perhaps the greatest testament occurs at the start of the final paragraph, where Chris says he’d do it […]
Volunteers’ Week 1: Volunteer voices!
By Mike Esbester on June 1, 2019 in Blog, Guest contribution, Transcription Tuesday, Volunteers’ Week
1-7 June is the UK’s Volunteers’ Week – a celebration of the hard work and amazing achievements of people giving up their time freely to help others. As we’re fortunate to have lots of wonderful volunteers contributing to our project, we wanted to make sure their efforts were recognised publicly – including by saying a […]
Family Tree Live – impressions of our project
Earlier this week we posted a blog summarising a few thoughts about the recent Family Tree Live event at Alexandra Palace. There was plenty we missed out – not least what some of the 3000 or so people who came through the doors thought about our project, and what our stand volunteers made of it […]
