In One Ear: Write it up

Published 6:00 am Thursday, January 8, 2026

Do you want something challenging to tackle during the rainy winter months? Can you read cursive handwriting? Or retype a document accurately? If so, the National Archives needs volunteer transcribers. Once you register, there are instructions on how to get started.

The Citizen Archivist Mission page on their website describes several ongoing projects that need transcription. One is the Revolutionary War Pension Files Transcription and Tagging Missions, transcribing the “stories of over 80,000 men and women who lived through the American Revolution” of 1775 to 1783, and/or tagging completed files so they are Internet searchable.

Another task is transcribing the JFK Assassination Records, “relating to governmental agencies involved from 1963 to 1964,” which includes the assassination and the murder of Jack Ruby.

And then there are the “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Records (UAP),” a “sanitized version of Project Blue Book case files on sightings of unidentified flying objects from 1947 to 1969.” 

Letters Received, April 1866 to December 1866 includes letters for transcription received by the Freedman’s Bureau Office in Macon, Georgia.

Previous transcription missions include: Historic Menus, World War II Diaries, Pentagon Papers, Steamship Lusitania, and many more, some of which still need to be completed. (Photo: National Archives/Citizen Archivist Mission/Fold3)