Project GB1900 Needs Help!

The team at GB1900 needs people to help complete the project. They are working to preserve the place names on old ordnance maps and have been running a crowdsourcing project to get this much needed work done. 

The project is wrapping up (January 8th, 2018). All of the place names have been transcribed, but volunteers are needed to verify the transcriptions. In an effort to get this moving, the team have put together a fun little incentive. Here's the info from their latest newsletter:

We need to finish up GB1900 and we realise that it is getting harder and harder to find new “pins” to create. We also know that the current leader board no longer provides the right incentive, as we now mainly need confirmations and most of you can only improve your ranking by creating new pins.

We can’t change the leader board within GB1900, and want to go on using it to recognise the contributors who have made the greatest long term contribution to the project. However, we are adding a separate system to reward those who do most in these final months:

These final months will be a kind of treasure hunt, searching out the last few names on the maps, so it is appropriate we pay you in Doubloons. Each week we will pay out one MILLION Doubloons.

Half of those Doubloons will be paid for doing confirmations, and half for new pins. Each week they will be divided up between all volunteers active that week according to how many of each kind of task you have done. It is already much harder to find new names, so the amount we pay for each one will be greater — but we pay you for a new pin only when it is confirmed.

As the weeks go by, both kinds of task will get harder, so the amount we pay for each one will go up. We would not be surprised if in December we pay out the whole weekly amount for a single new pin.

We are back-dating this system to the 1st of September, when we announced that the project would be winding up. These are the numbers of new pins and confirmations for each week since, and the resulting payments. 

We recognise that as piracy has been stamped out on the Spanish Main, Doubloons are no longer legal tender. However, the five contributors ending up with the most Doubloons will instead receive a bespoke, site-centred printed copy of the Six Inch map of their choice, a warm welcome and behind the scenes tour to view selected map treasures, and a free cup of tea if they can make their way to either of the National Libraries to receive it. We will do the same for the five contributors who are topping the existing leader board.

Doubloons, tea and a behind the scenes tour! What more could a genealogist ask for? 

Family History Month - Working to Preserve History

There is a big crowd-sourcing project underway to assist with preserving the names of local towns, villages, estates, farms and streets of 1900 Scotland. And best of all, it is incredibly easy to use. Here's a walk through:

Warning: this project can be highly addictive!

Click on: http://gb1900.org/

Click "Login"

Scroll down the page and click on "Sign Up"

Fill in your email address, create a password, fill in your name and you are ready to go. 

Return to the home page

Read through the tutorial. It is not lengthy and is really easy to follow. 

Return to the home page. Scroll to the bottom and enter the area of Scotland where your ancestors lived. Even if they didn't live there in 1900. 

Wait for the map to load

Zoom in

Click transcribe at the top of the page. 

Click on any word on the map. Then in the pop up box, type the word that is visible on the map. The transcription program is case sensitive, so pay attention. Then click "done" You will see a brown location balloon appear.

If you see a green location balloon on the map, it means someone has already transcribed the word and that transcription needs verification. If you click on that green balloon and then type in what you see, the program will check to ensure your typing matches the other person's typing, and the green balloon will then turn purple. 

Purple balloons mean that the word on the map has been transcribed AND verified. The transcription is complete. 

If your area is all completed, find a new area to transcribe. 

Well, what are you waiting for? Enjoy your new black hole of genealogy fun!
http://gb1900.org/