# Historical Document Transcription Design Intent
I have several thousand pages of family history told through letters, postcards, books, and other documents that I want to transcribe to text. 

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## Goals
1. Preserve our family history
2. Unburden my family (and descendants) from having to store and care for the physical media. Once the documents have been transcribed and organized, they can be donated (or kept by a family member that wants to retain and preserve them).
3. Make the document text easily available and easily searchable.
4. Ability create timelines for individuals and/or families through document dates or the data contained in them. Perhaps even use AI to generate biographies or family histories.

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## Source material
1. **letters, cards, diaries** - handwritten; mostly stored in boxes and tubs with little organization
2. **books** - typed or typeset; mostly self-published books 50-100 pages in length. This may be expanded to include selected pages from other publications.
3. **photos** - notes written on the backs of photos and the pages of photo albums
4. **other ephemera** - newspaper clippings, event programs, invitations, military records, immigration records, etc

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## Methodology

1. Follow current best practices per **A Guide to Documentary Editing** by Mary-Jo Kline. (See [Transcription Methodology](transcription_methodology.md))

