Welcome to our November-December newsletter.
Wishing you all the best for the festive season.
To ensure emails from us don’t go into your Spam folder, add VoicesThroughTime@Coram.org.uk to your safe sender list.
Have you received our welcome email? Signed up on Zooniverse? See our welcome information below.
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Welcome information
Queries: Write your question in Talk
Our team is part-time.
We will always get back to your question as soon as we can.
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All about the project
Volunteer hub for transcribers
Would you like to stay in touch?
Tell us your username here
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November's figures
2,919 pages transcribed
973 records pages completed
142 people transcribing
1,064 Talk comments
Each page is completed once it has been transcribed three separate times. It's then compiled together into a final transcription, to ensure best quality.
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November and December?
Yes that’s right, we are covering both months here in this issue!
From now on, the newsletter will be coming out bi-monthly. With so much going on in the project, we need time to just sit and write it all down!
By doing two months together, we can ensure that we get all the news and updates to you on time. Look out for our January and February issue in the new year.
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As we reach the end of the year we want to take this moment to say thank you to you for all your transcribing in 2021.
Your dedication, commitment and interest in the project has been incredible. You have transcribed a colossal 11,336 pages of records since we launched in February! Not only that but you've created transcriptions for a huge variety of records, from registers of children, to letters written by mothers, to minutes showing how the Foundling Hospital was run.
Thanks to your hard work, we are on our way to making the records of Foundlings completely accessible to anyone, anywhere; and preserved and protected for the future.
Thank you for being amazing. We are so proud of what we have achieved this year together.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,
Molly, Jo and The Voices Through Time team
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Why I'm so proud of this project
This project isn't just about transcribing. It's about sharing knowledge, supporting each other, and being a community.
Read about why we're so proud of what we've achieved in this blog from Molly, our Volunteer Coordinator here
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It's official! We are now a Zooniverse Project!
We're delighted to share with you that Voices Through Time is now an official Zooniverse project.
Last week we completed the final step in the review process required by the Zooniverse team. They have finished checking our project and have given it the Zooniverse stamp of approval. This means that our project is now in the official list of Zooniverse projects.
It appears on the main project page: https://www.zooniverse.org/projects and can be searched for from the main Zooniverse site.
Thank you to everyone who has helped in giving us feedback and suggestions so far, without you we wouldn't have been able to get to this point.
A warm welcome to new transcribers who have found us from the official projects list this week.
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Our first Transcription Workshop
Would you like to learn more about transcribing?
To exchange tips with other transcribers?
Join us on Wednesday 19 January for an interactive online workshop. We’ll be learning about the history of handwriting and palaeography best practice, as well as sharing tips and tricks for transcribing the Voices Through Time documents.
If you’ve ever been puzzled by abbreviations and strange spellings when working on a transcription, or wondered how best to transcribe them, then we hope that this workshop will help.
It will also be an opportunity to ask any questions you may have about transcribing on the project, and to share your own experiences of volunteering as a transcriber.
Whether you’re new to the project or have been volunteering with us for a long time, we hope to see you there!
Wednesday 19 January 1-2pm.
To find out more and register for free, see our event page here
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Update from our Archivist
Explore Your Archive
We’ve had a busy November. The Voices Through Time team participated in this year’s Explore Your Archive week. This week is organised by the Archives and Records Association for the UK & Ireland and is an opportunity for those of us working with archives to highlight our collections and the work that is being done with them.
Over the week, we shared posts and blogs on the tokens that parents left with their children, literacy and handwriting in relation to the petition letters, as well as sharing an insight into the work of the conservation team at London Metropolitan Archives, who have been conserving the archive documents ahead of them being digitised. Through this we were able to share some of the work that has been done through this project with a wider archival and heritage audience.
Sub-committee starts
On Zooniverse, we recently added the first batch of the Sub-committee minutes. There are 36 volumes of these in total, covering the period 1748-1843. The records that have already been transcribed have already shed new light on the day to day business and running of the hospital.
Swords and hoops
As well as noting who was at each meeting, there have been details around a whole host of topics emerging from the Sub-committee minutes. These include details of musical performances at the Foundling Hospital, including one such performance that Volunteer @Liverpool-Cooper shared on the Talk board, where ‘Gentlemen are desired to come without swords and Ladies without hoops’.
Other intriguing subjects so far have included fishing nets, beer and spinning wheels!
As the volumes cover a period of 95 years, and you continue to transcribe, I’m looking forward to seeing even more evocative details and information come to light.
Jo Blyghton, Voices Through Time Project Archivist
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Who wrote the mothers’ petition letters?
The petition letters provide amazing insights into the lives of those who
wanted their child admitted to the Foundling Hospital, though these were rarely penned by the mothers themselves.
Find out more in this fascinating blog
from transcriber and PhD student Amber here
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A year of our Story of Care Ambassadors
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This year we have been lucky enough to have fantastic group of Ambassadors on the programme, who have given their time to campaign, write, draw, podcast, perform and share about their experiences of being
care-experienced young people.
Not only that, but they have been ambassadors for our Voices Through Time: The Story of Care programme, challenging the stigma surrounding being in care and reflecting on the past and present through the archive.
Read about all that they’ve achieved in this blog from our team's proud Youth Engagement Coordinator Rebecca here |
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Coming up: a visit to the Archives
We know you’re getting pretty familiar with the scanned Foundling Hospital records, but do you know where the originals are kept?
London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) is the home of Coram’s entire Foundling Hospital archive. There they look after the thousands of fascinating, beautiful and fragile records that tell the story of the Hospital and its Foundlings.
We are currently in touch with staff at LMA to arrange a visit there in February for our wonderful transcribers. Watch this space!
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Stories from the Talk message board
Now we have started transcribing the sub-committee records, we are finding all sorts of curiosities in the these meeting minutes!
Here are some of our favourite nuggets found so far…
Two lobsters and a marrow pudding
In more than one record page transcribers @jlayto @mobow and @catalpa75 have been fortunate enough to come across a menu put together for an Anniversary Dinner held in the 1700s.
This delicious menu includes such delights as green goose, ragoo melle and 100 asparagus. See the record and read the discussion here
Sacred musick
The famous composer Handel was also a philanthropist, who used his reputation as a leading composer to support the Foundling Hospital. He raised significant sums of money for it, as well as making it a beneficiary of his will.
Transcribers have found all sorts of mentions of him in the minutes, including notes about arranging tickets for the performance of Handel's Messiah in the Founding Hospital Chapel; a royal visit requiring special seats; coffee and chocolate houses to pick concert tickets up from; and a performance of ‘sacred musick’. Thanks to @Liverpool-Cooper @mobow @Hadlow @SueTall for sharing your findings. Read the discussion and see the records here
Harsh winds, fishing nets, wagons and beer
The breadth and variety of subjects mentioned is what makes the Sub-Committee minutes so fun to transcribe. Some of these include children making fishing nets for commercial use, switching from drinking water to beer and being given hats and bonnets to protect the eyes when going out in a harsh wind. Read more about these findings made by transcribers @GrandaughterofFoundlingKitty @LindaNik @catalpa75 @Hadlow, and add your own in our discussion here
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James’ story
As we continue on the project, we are able to transcribe more and more different types of records, and familiar names start to appear...
Noticing these is how we begin to uncover the stories of Foundlings’ lives!
Read what transcriber Julie has discovered about Foundling number #16335,
James Butler in her brilliant blog here
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Starting soon – Stories of Interest Volunteers
We have a great opportunity coming soon for young people aged 18-25.
We will soon be recruiting volunteers to help us delve into the archive and unearth Foundling stories. This will be an excellent chance for young people who are passionate about history to get experience of doing original research.
To hear more about the role and what will be involved, visit our website here
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Do our survey
Have you been transcribing with us for a while? Did you just start yesterday? Whatever point you’re at, we’d like to hear your feedback.
We know you’ve been finding the records fascinating, but what do you think of the volunteering experience so far? We’d love to know so that we can improve and make it as enjoyable as possible for you.
Tell us about your experience, by filling out our short feedback survey below.
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Have fun and get fit with Coram
London Landmarks Half Marathon
Coram are looking for enthusiastic people to run the London Landmarks Half Marathon on 3 April 2022! Could that be you?
If you're interested in taking on the challenge for Coram email challengeyourself@coram.org.uk today for an application form.
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The Language of Emotion
surrounding the Foundling Hospital
In this excellent blog, volunteer Margaret Grover explores how emotion is conveyed through the precious documents we have remaining from the Foundling Hospital.
Read about her research into the language of emotion here
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Stitch in Time project finishes
Over six sessions care-experienced young people responded to the history of the Foundling Hospital and reflected on their experiences of being in care.
Each week they learned different textile techniques and methods, which came together into a final piece that will later go on display.
Watch our video of the process here
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Thank you
This has been an incredible year, thank you for coming on the journey with us.
Let’s see what we uncover in 2022. #RealStoriesOfCare
Molly, Jo and the Voices Through Time team
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