Become a Scotland's Places transcriber

[Shona]

If you have Scottish ancestry, Scotland's Places are looking for volunteers to help transcribe their historic tax rolls. By volunteering, you get free access to the images. I've got a sub for the site and have found that the tax rolls have assisted me enormously with my Scottish branches.

Check out the link.

http://www.scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/news

7 June, 2013

With the launch of the new transcription system, we are looking for as many volunteers as possible to help us create transcripts of the documents held in the ScotlandsPlaces website.

This will allow users to search each individual page for people and place names.

Becoming a transcriber gives you free access to the entire site - our way of thanking those who contribute to the work to open up these archives by creating transcripts.

All transcripts are freely available and searchable to anyone accessing the site - whether they are registered or not, so this really is an online community effort to make sources freely available.

If you want to be a part of one of the biggest archival crowd-sourcing projects in the UK, contact the Outreach Officer and get started! If you already have a subscription, get in touch and we will happily extend it for free beyond the three months you already have.


Listed below are the records they hold.

Carriage tax 1785-98
Owners of two-wheeled or four-wheeled carriages in Scotland paid tax on their carriages. Tends to be the wealthy who paid this tax.

Cart tax 1785-98
The tax fell mainly on farmers and landowners in the rural areas and carters in the towns. Cart tax rolls list the names of cart owners and the types of cart they owned.

Clock and watch tax 1797-98
Again, this tends to be paid by the wealthy. Volumes 1 and 2 only. Aberdeenshire, Argyll, Ayrshire, Banffshire, Berwickshire, Buteshire, Caithness, Clackmannanshire, Cromartyshire, Dunbartonshire, and Dumfriesshire. East Lothian (Haddingtonshire), Fife, Angus (Forfarshire), Inverness-shire, Kincardineshire, Kinross-shire, Kirkcudbrightshire, and Lanarkshire.

Dog tax 1797-98
A tax on non-working dogs.

Farm horse tax 1785-92
Exactly what it says.

Female servant tax 1785-92
Taxes were levied on households employing 'non-essential' female servants between 1785 and 1792. Names of the women are recorded.

Hearth tax 1691-1695
Only the poor and hospitals were exempt.

Horse tax 1785-98
A list of who paid tax on carriage and saddle horses

Land tax 1645-1831
Or cess rolls - a list of owners of landed estates and the rental value of their lands.

Male Servant tax 1777-98
The male servant tax was levied on the households employing 'non-essential' male servants from 1777 onwards. It names the servant for which the tax was paid. Footmen appear a lot.

Shop tax 1785-89
Occasionally the names of the businesses are included as well as the annual value of shops over £5.

[kiterunner]

Thanks for the info, Shona. I would love to get involved. When I click on the "Outreach officer" link on that page it takes me to a page called "Transcriptions feedback", telling me to fill in the transcriptions feedback form; is that the way I would contact them to offer to help?

[Shona]

It's not clear at all, is it. Here's what to do:

1 Go to the home page of Scotland's Places.
2 Click on the tab Transcribe Archives.
3 Click on Would you like to become a transcriber?
4 Complete the form on the right-hand side of the page. Remember to tick the box saying you want to transcribe.
5 You will then be sent an email to activate your registration.

Let me know if it works!

[kiterunner]

Thanks, Shona.

[kiterunner]

I've registered and clicked on the link in the email to confirm my registration, but what do I do next? I can't find out how to actually get started on transcribing.

[Shona]

1 On the Home Page, click on Transcribe Archives.
2 Then click on the roll you want to transcribe. Keep clicking through until the form to fill in comes up.

There doesn't seem to be a problem with the Clock and Watch Tax rolls or the Farm Horse Tax rolls.

However, the remaining ones keeps asking for a sub to transcribe, which isn't what the news item claimed!

I'll contact them.

The Help button at the top right of the Home page gives some info on transcribing.

[kiterunner]

Ah, right, found it now. Thanks!

[Shona]

Here is the message I've received from Scotland's Places.

I'm a tad annoyed.

The News item says that if you volunteer as a transcriber, you get free access to the whole site. Seems that might not be the case. I knew I had access to the whole site as I have a sub. I registered again using another email addresses to check what happened if you were new to the site and volunteered to transcribe.

However on activating the new registration, I couldn't access anything but the Clock Tax and Farm Horse Tax (which are free to access already).

Good of them to give six weeks free sub, though.


Thank you for your interest in ScotlandsPlaces.

We are currently piloting and reviewing the subscription and transcription roles, and are trying to balance the input of transcribers with the issue of subscriptions.

What I have done is provide you with a 6 week subscription access, so you can now view the resources and transcribe. We will review the transcription output towards the end of the period and look to extend if possible.

[kiterunner]

I haven't actually got started with transcribing yet but will have a go later today. There do seem to be a lot of instructions to learn! I don't like the idea of expanding abbreviations of names, occupations etc from a list; surely it would be better for us to key what it says and for their software to expand them. But they aren't the only transcription project which tells keyers to do this, by any means.

[Shona]

Let's compare notes later. I'm going to have a go with the Farm Horse Tax in Argyll.

[Glen TK]

It certainly sounds a bit make it up as you go along, transcription errors we can understand as part of the process, but anything where the transcriber expands on the content in the way described is way outside archive and repository guidelines.

[kiterunner]

I've managed to find their abbreviations guide, but for the love of all that's holy, how on earth do they make out "Bailie" to be an abbreviation of "Ballie"? :confused: If I come across one of those I think I will give up!
http://www.scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/sites/default/files/dSP_Guide_Abbreviations.pdf



And I guess we are supposed to use context to decide whether "Yr" is an abbreviation of "there" or "younger" (though surely it could be "year" or "your" as well.)

I'm working on a page of the clock and watch tax rolls but finding it heavy going so far.

[Shona]

Bailie is a variant spelling of baillie. Think there must be a typo in their list!

I've been doing a Farm Horse Tax roll. Lots of abbreviated first names ( Dun, Don, Dug, Dan). I'm not clear, though, whether to leave a space after Mac, which is how the surnames appear.

[kiterunner]

Oh dear, now I've found their full page example of how the clock and tax rolls should be transcribed, I understand it less than I did before! I think I will finish off the page I'm doing as I think the instructions say to do it and then send them some questions about the example (it has some of the names expanded but others not, and Mercht expanded to Merchant without the whole square bracket thing, also a "do" (ditto) instead of copying the words from the line above.)

[Shona]

I've just finished a Farm Horse Tax roll for one parish. I've used 'do' instead of writing out the word above, too!

They gave a column for the name, but not a separate one for the place name, which seems daft!

[kiterunner]

I've finished a page and sent them a long feedback message asking for clarification of the differences between the keying example and the general instructions (I also mentioned that weird Bailie thing on the abbreviations list). Will let you know if I hear back!

[kiterunner]

I got a reply explaining that the full page transcription example is just meant to be a transcription of what it says on the page, rather than an example of how to transcribe it. I think this is likely to confuse a lot of new transcribers, though.