We'd like to announce the launch of a new crowd-sourcing transcription project, African American Civil War Soldiers. We are building a comprehensive database of the estimated 200,000 soldiers who fought for their freedom in the American Civil War. We are currently transcribing the soldiers military records and hope to later include the pension records of surviving veterans. These records contain some of the most detailed systematic evidence on the lives of former slaves. Until now historians have had to visit the National Archives to read them. We will turn this evidence into a searchable database to appear on the website of the African American Civil War Museum, and will also make it freely downloadable for researchers. The transcription will be crowd-sourced, meaning that any member of the public can get involved. The site works as a teaching aid, allowing students to explore primary documents many of which have never before been studied and to contribute direclty to their preservation and study.
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