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Making a Start
One year on
Half Way!
Final Leg
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Making a Start
Location: Devon
The Dartmouth History Research Group was formed some fourteen years ago, since then the group has produced thirty one books on various aspects of the towns rich heritage. Most of the research material is in the form of hand written notes, transcriptions of manuscripts or the documents themselves. The aim of "The Dartmouth Archives" is to ensure that these & others relating to the town & the surrounding area are readily available to others in the future.
Our project is in three parts. Firstly to identify the many aspects of local history and produce a disk based guide that will direct users to the area of research they may be interested in, such as prominent Dartmouth families, historic building, or areas such as Bayards Cove, the Pilgrim Fathers original departure point before being forced to return to Plymouth for repairs (our current research area). Much of this work was done while preparing the grant application.
The second phase aims to provide a summary of the information available with search & redirect facilities to the document or transcript where available, this is where our efforts are now concentrated.
The final stage is putting the archive material on to disc. Some of this work has been completed such as the 1891 Census and Church burial records. Where suitable, copies of documents will be made available by scanning or using digital photography, others will need to be transcribed. One problem encountered in this area is in the copying of manuscripts, many of these are on thick parchment that have spent most of their lives folded, not only it is difficult to get them flat to obtain a good copy, some of them have suffered damage in the folds.
Much of this work will require skills that members currently do not have, training in these areas is being arranged with the local Community College IT department for the autumn.
The group recently joined forces with the local WI who put on a "Bring your old photos evening" We took along our recently acquired equipment to take digital copies of photo's relating to the towns past.
The town Sergeant, who is a member of our group, also had on display some of the towns treasures. There were photo's of other items to valuable to display such as the Charter granting the town Borough status & the town 'Seal' now unfortunately broken. A transcript of the Charter & the photo's will be included in the archives.
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