Do You Want to Transcribe Records from Parish Records?

As you know, not all parish registers have been transcribed - and, every organisation has transcribed their own.  When you view a transcription of a parish register it is done by an individual or an organisation and then is available by a variety of methods.  It might've been a member of a Family History Society, who then publish the records for sale on CDs, or it might've been a volunteer for FreeREG.  The LDS volunteers also transcribe parish registers.

The thing with transcribing is that you transcribe exactly what you see - and the thing is that different people will see different things!

I was looking at the parish registers for a parish yesterday and I could see what looked like the name "Moose".  But I "knew" heuristically that it was actually Moore.  Reading/understanding old hand-writing is a bit of a skill, brought about from practice.  But, it's also about knowledge.  If I'd not know the name Moore existed I'd have never seen the correct Moore there, I'd have transcribed it as Moose - and descendants of Mr & Mrs Moore might never have found their ancestor's records as the search results wouldn't show Moose as an option in case they'd selected for "sounds like/similar to", which, for a lot of records, would've given them too many results.

So, it's not as straight forward as you think!

But, there are lots of opportunities to transcribe parish registers.  I'm registered with a few of them.

FreeREG are always looking for transcribers - unfortunately, when I contacted them, they wanted people who already had the parish registers to submit their transcriptions to them as their access to the originals had been withdrawn.  They do have some parish registers where they provide you with the originals and you transcribe those, but not in my area.  I don't like to transcribe away from areas I know as I feel that I don't have the local knowledge of names/place names to be able to do a good job of it.  They certainly have a need for transcribers in Lincolnshire, Kent, Essex and Sussex at the time of writing.  My interest was in a part of Cambridgeshire/Huntingdonshire though.

LDS, who run the FamilySearch.org website, also make records available for transcription.  For me, I've not yet seen a parish I'd like to transcribe.  But one day I will!

If you are interested in volunteering for transcription work, then check out FreeREG and the LDS first, as those routes are the simplest.  But there are others out there looking for volunteers if you take the time to search for them.