Here are Some Tips for Transcribing the Captions

• Most important - have fun. Many of these images are around 100 years old. You will see scenes and read text that will take you to long-forgotten worlds. Enjoy the time you work on this project.
• Take your time. It will take you a while to get used to the handwriting. We estimate that there were around ten people involved in creating the albums and copying the captions.
• You are going to make a list of the captions. Have a blank line between each caption.

Important Practices

• The first rule is to transcribe exactly what you see.
• Each image has an ID number associated with it. Type the initial letter followed by the number.
• In some cases there is a period or 'dot' and space between the letter and the number. Do not transcribe the period and space.
• Example: H. 3255 becomes H3255
• In some cases an alternate ID will be associated with an image. In that case place the secondary number in parentheses next to the primary ID number (the primary generally begins with a letter and generally will be on the lower left of the image.

• The following set of practices should be followed
  • Spell out all abbreviations, including the names of cities, states and countries.
  • Avoid the ampersand ('&'). It can cause problems in some databases. Use 'and' instead.
  • Don't modernize the names of countries or cities; spell them as they appear in the document.
  • If you can't read the text because of damage to the page, attempts to alter the text or poor penmanship note that with three underscores; ___
  • Follow the capitalization practices in the text.
  • From time to time there will be initials at the top, bottom, or middle of the page - maybe even next to several images. Include these in roughly the same location in your transcription. These are often the initials of the photographer.

• You will encounter ethnic slurs and archaic racialized language.
  • The language in these transcriptions reflects the prejudices and established practices of their time. Do not transcribe this dated and offensive language - the Internet has enough of that.
  • Transcribe the first letter of the word followed by brackets and three asterisks
  • Example: n[***] - It doesn't matter how many letters are in the word, just use three asterisks within the brackets
  • If people wish, they can still see the word in the image; it just won't be indexed by the Internet
• If you are uncertain about the spelling of a name, it is possible that our finding aids an help you
  • Go to our Finding Aids Catalog
  • Enter the name as a keyword and see if it appears in the results.
  • Try a few variations if you wish
  • If you find an answer, great. If not after a few tries give you best guess