Celebrate the Newest Release of Herencia Documents by Participating in our Transcribe-a-thon!

In honor of National Hispanic Heritage Month, and the release of Phase 3 of our crowdsourcing campaign, Herencia: Centuries of Spanish Legal Documents, the Law Library of Congress will be hosting another entirely virtual transcribe-a-thon from today, Monday, September 27, through Friday, October 1. This event is in collaboration with By the People and the Hispanic Reading Room of the Library of Congress.

All week, participants are encouraged to transcribe newly released documents from the collection, which contains print and manuscript documents from Spain from the 15th through the 19th centuries. Phase 3 comprises the final third of the total collection and will include four new projects for a total of over 11,000 additional unique documents in Spanish, Latin, and Catalan. Below are the four new projects representing Phase 3:

• Briefs: Agreements, Debts and Obligations, 18th-19th Centuries
• Briefs: Wills, Trusts, Inheritances and Gifts, 18th-19th Centuries
• Briefs: Other Civil Disputes
• Miscellaneous

Our goal for this week’s transcribe-a-thon is to transcribe 200 pages from the newly released Miscellaneous project! “Miscellaneous” is one of the six original categories of the Spanish legal documents collection. This category was used to group a variety of subjects, which include items such as statements issued by members of the Spanish armed forces; agreements between kingdoms of Spain; records on controversies on religious ceremonial rites; statements submitted to the kings of Spain; appointments; petitions to the king; records of the inquiries; oaths of allegiance to the kings of Spain by the ambassadors of the crown; royal answers to petitions by the Catholic church; academic speeches; and letters by pretenders to the throne of Spain.

From the genealogy of noble families to declarations from the Napoleonic Wars to 17th-century documents from New Spain, there are topics to interest everyone in this varied collection. To follow some of the original research that has been conducted in the collection since the releases of Phases 1 and 2, check out some recent blog posts from our spring and summer 2021 interns.

Throughout the week, you can ask questions, learn more about this collection and past collections, and engage with us from our Twitter accounts at @LawLibCongress and @CROWD_LOC. You can also join the conversation with fellow volunteers on our History Hub page.

In the meantime, you can also learn more about transcribing this historical collection by watching our previous Herencia webinars.