Volunteer Transcribers: Tasmanian birth records
Release of BDM information is restricted for both personal privacy and national security reasons as follows:
- Birth records: until one hundred years (1924)
- Marriage records: until 75 years (1949)
- Death records: until 25 years (1999)
The society is working with Libraries Tasmania to bring public release of birth and then marriage records up to these dates. Another project is addressing death records.
Archives Tasmania is currently adding new volumes of the original birth records to DigiVol as volumes are transcribed and validated by volunteers. The data is then extracted and cleaned, and uploaded to the Names Index. When an entire year of records (and all districts) are completed, it is removed from the corresponding Federation Index data. The Federation Indexes will ultimately become obsolete. The Names Index will provide more detail and a link to an image of the original record.
We are calling on all our members (and other interested persons) to consider becoming a volunteer Digivol transcriber. There are no limits (upper or lower) on how much you choose to do or when you choose to do it.
Guide
This step-by-step guide prepared by the society will walk you through the process of registering and transcribing you first records. It may be viewed here or downloaded as a PDF. Note: If it does not display correctly on your platform then use the PDF version.
Tutorial
Libraries Tasmania provides a tutorial for each record set in Digivol. It is available from within the Digivol website but a copy is also provided here for your convenience. It provides specific instruction on transcription issues. We recommend downloading and printing a copy and always having it on hand when you are transcribing.
Validators
Once you have registered and transcribed a few records you may wish to consider becoming a validator which means checking other volunteer’s transcriptions. Please email the TFHS co-ordinator if you are interested in this