Voluntary Work
It’s week 6 of the summer holidays – one more full week to go before our son goes back to school, which means one more week before I can work during normal school hours. As usual, it’s been tricky trying to combine work and full-time caring over the holidays. My time is split between fitting work around caring, and making sure our son gets out at least once a day – always with us, as there are no activities where we can leave our son with other people, even for an hour. On top of work and caring, we also have our daughter – she achieved the results she needed and will be off to university soon, so it’s all systems go to get her ready.
So, voluntary work. I have managed to fit some in over summer, albeit sporadically. I have two volunteering roles, and both are home-based jobs that I can fit in around my other commitments.
RTFHS: Committee Member
The first job – I am a committee member for the Romany & Traveller Family History Society (RTFHS). The role involves attending three or four committee meetings a year, which I can do online. I can plan my caring responsibilities around the meetings – I know the dates in advance, and we can make sure our son is kept busy while I’m online.
I am responsible for answering queries from people searching for their Romany/Traveller ancestors, and queries come in either via email or social media. I also answer general queries where people might be looking for advice on how to research their ancestors, or ask the Society to attend fairs or online events.
As a committee member, I am involved in Society discussions and decisions – all online, and all as and when I have the time to read an email and formulate a response.
The committee role fits in around my usual work. I can answer queries in between working, or later in the evening when I’ve finished working. It feels like I contribute, without any real pressures on my time.
Midland Ancestors: Transcription Work
The second job – I transcribe parish registers for Midland Ancestors. This role is more time-consuming. I receive a file containing a parish register, and I have to read every entry and type the entry into a spreadsheet. The registers vary in size and content – one I completed recently had over 4200 entries, and all need to be transcribed. The work is interesting – handwritten entries vary over the years, and I find earlier handwriting is fairly easy to interpret. As I work through a register, I can figure out how someone has written each letter, so if I find an entry which is difficult to interpret, I can look back over entries in the same hand to figure out the individual letters.
It’s fascinating work – I can see how naming patterns evolved in the parish, so you might have a period where you have lots of Marys or Williams baptized, and suddenly a new name will appear, such as Esther or Daniel. Then, there might be a flurry of Esthers and Daniels for a few years, until new names appear.
I can also see how surnames suddenly appear in parish registers. Some names will appear over a period of ten, twenty years or more, indicating that an extended family were present and stayed in the parish for some time. Other surnames will suddenly appear – perhaps they moved into the parish for work, or moved in when they married someone living in the parish.
The spelling of names also varies, and often within a line or two, so there might be a baptism for a Mary Thomson, followed by a burial for a Marye Thompson a few entries later. It teaches you to look beyond the usual spellings and think more phonetically.
The burial entries are interesting. You can see how many children die within their first few months, and often there are multiple burials from the same family within a short time period – perhaps indicating a reason for so many deaths in one family, such as poverty or an illness that swept through the family at the time.
Some burial entries indicate whether the person was a pauper, or lived in an alms house, and some entries provide details such as ‘John Smith, travelling through to Wales, found on the road’, where people outside the parish have been buried in the churchyard. Other entries may include the age at death, or the circumstances, such as ‘drowned’ or ‘killed’.
As I work though the entries, I can see when different people have written the entries, and sometimes, although not often, the new clerk is mentioned in the registers. A change in handwriting takes a bit of time to get used to, but it’s all part of the process of recording an entry as accurately as possible.
Why Volunteer?
There are two main reasons I volunteer. The first is to give my time to help others – with the committee work, it’s helping people to find their ancestors, or steering people in the right direction to locate information they need. It’s also being part of a team – the Society can’t function without a committee, and it’s great to feel part of a team to help run things and provide a service for others. With the transcription work, it’s all about providing accurate records for others to refer to when they look for their ancestors. There’s nothing more satisfying than figuring out a tricky, feint entry that’s been written in between other entries, or finding a unique name not previously seen in the registers.
The second reason is more personal – both roles help me in my day-to-day life as a genealogist. The committee work helps me understand where records Romany/Traveller records might be located, it gives me new insights into where I might search for an elusive ancestor, and it keeps me in touch with people. Life as a self-employed genealogist can sometimes feel quite isolated and solitary. The committee members keep me in touch with others in a meaningful and useful way.
The transcription work definitely helps me to read old handwriting in other documents – I find I can now more easily interpret the contents of a will or probate entry, and I can see how handwriting changes over time.
Could You Volunteer?
I encourage everyone to do some form of voluntary work. You don’t need a huge amount of spare time – many family history societies are in danger of folding because of the lack of volunteers. Could you spare maybe two or three hours a month? Do you have an interest in a particular geographical area, or a particular group of people? It’s definitely worth contacting your local family history group or specialist group – they will welcome you. If you’re studying, or struggling to read old handwriting, then transcription work will help. You will become familiar with handwriting styles and forms, and will learn while helping others.
I’ve found that I can fit in my voluntary work around my other commitments, and I am sure you could too.
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Thanks for reading – next month I will update on my One Place Study, ahead of the ‘All About That Place’ event happening in October.
