Missouri State Archives Has Volunteer Opportunities

StLGS put out a call for volunteers on 22 August 2022 (Read that post here, if you missed it) and now our friends at the Missouri State Archives are also asking for assistance. Although StLGS still REALLY needs people with specific technology and proofreading skills, we are happy to share information about more volunteer opportunities that you can do from home on your computer. Read on for the specifics on how you can help.

Indexing for the Missouri State Archives

Liana Twente, the eVolunteer Coordinator for the Missouri State Archives in Jefferson City, says that the archives is “currently indexing the St. Louis Criminal Court Index collection. These cards contain the index to both permanent and non-permanent case files from the St. Louis City Criminal Court. This index will be used to access the permanent records held by the Missouri State Archives until they are processed and added to the Judicial Database. This is one of several projects that the Missouri State Archives has available on FromThePage, a site that provides a user-friendly platform for organizations and institutions to host transcription projects and easily connect with volunteers from across the globe.”

The website Liana refers to, FromThePage, describes itself as “software for transcribing documents and collaborating on transcriptions with others. It’s an easy-to-use way for libraries and archives to enlist assistance from a large number of people on major projects." The project our state archives would like help with is an index of St. Louis Criminal Court cases from about 1894 to 1950. The court cases are currently at the Missouri State Archives, but access to them is limited because there is no complete index.

If you are interested in helping, here is the process.

• Go to this page on the FromThePage website: https://fromthepage.com/missouristatearchives/stl-criminal-court-index 
• NOTE: If you are using Firefox as your internet browser, the website may not work for you, and you may get an error message. It works perfectly, though, in Chrome, so you may want to switch to that browser in this case.
• Click the button of your choice: "Pages That Need Transcription," "Pages That Need Review," "Start Transcribing" (See image below; two buttons on the right; one in the middle)
• You will be asked to verify that you aren’t a robot by clicking in a box. 
• Then, you can do up to three transcriptions as a guest. 
• If you want to continue, you will be asked to sign up as a transcriber.

In addition to the index to court cases, the Missouri State Archives is indexing early Missouri tax lists. Active now are the following:

• Boone County, 1825 and 1829
• Callaway County, 1823 and 1824
• Chariton County, 1825
• Ste. Genevieve County, 1841

All of these are fairly short, from sixteen to fifty-two pages, and the digital copies are clear and easily enlarged and moved with your mouse so you can see.

If you have questions about transcribing Missouri records, Liana encourages you to contact her at archvol@sos.mo.gov.

No ancestors in Missouri? You can still help out by going to the “Find a Project” page on the FromthePage website where projects are listed in alphabetical order. Here, you might find something that needs to be done in a location in which your family resided, including a few foreign countries, for those fluent in other languages.