WHERE: Joe Mareane Conference Room (Second Floor), Located inside the Tompkins Center for History & Culture, 110 N Tioga St, Ithaca NY 14850

HistoryForge Transcription sessions happen every other Saturday from 11am-1pm. They happen in-person at the Tompkins Center for History & Culture on the Ithaca Commons usually in the Second Floor Conference Room.

Be sure you're on the email list to stay in the loop! APPLICATION REQUIRED for new volunteers - We need to do some behind-the-scenes prep-work for each session!

What We'll Be Doing

Help build the HistoryForge database for Tompkins County! We hold community transcription sessions twice a month on Saturdays from 11-1. In 2023 we will be working on the Town of Ithaca census records 1950, as well as for the Town of Caroline (1880-1950), Town of Newfield (1880-1950), and Trumansburg (1880-1950)!

To help with our behind the scenes processing of volunteer materials, please complete the volunteer form at least 4 days before the session.

Complete Volunteer Application

HistoryForge is a digital mapping and transcription project from The History Center in Tompkins County. We need help digitizing information from the 1940 Ithaca census to add to our HistoryForge database! Volunteers will read through the handwritten census notes from 1940, re-type/and or scan information about individuals, buildings, and businesses from that time period.

YOU WILL NEED: A laptop or desktop computer, stable internet connection. We have a limited number of volunteer laptops available.

About HistoryForge

HistoryForge is a digital history project from The History Center in Tompkins County which combines historic maps and photos with census records of the people who lived in Ithaca, creating a way to visualize the history of Ithaca in the early 1900s. Learn more about the project here and the start of our database creation.

Not available Saturdays but interested?
Contact Eve at HistoryForge@thehistorycenter.net

The HistoryForge project has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom.

The HistoryForge: Mapping Census Data to Visualize Local History grant was awarded in 2022-2024 through NEH's Digital Humanities Advancement Grant program. The project was also selected to receive funding through NEH's A More Perfect Union initiative.

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LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This project is digitizing post-colonization records of Tompkins County, which is located in the traditional and contemporary lands of the Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫˀ Nation (Cayuga), one of the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Learn more at thehistorycenter.net/land-acknowledgment.