TESTAMENTOS DE MURCIA

What are the testamentary cards?

The cards collect the basic data of wills and other testamentary dispositions (codicils, post mortem inventories, partitions of assets...) granted by notaries public in the city of Murcia between the 15th and 19th centuries. For the project we have incorporated more than 36,000 cards typed and handwritten decades ago. With the transcription of these records we will collect information on the date of the document, the type of document, the grantor or grantors, their profession, relationship, as well as the reference code (protocol number and folio). The indexing of these records, which will later be uploaded to the web catalogue of the Archive, will provide a large amount of information on genealogy and family, social and economic history of the city of Murcia and its area of influence.

What happens if I make a wrong transcription?

It doesn't matter if you make a mistake when transcribing any of the records, since other users will also transcribe the same records as you and in this way we will be able to compare and contrast the different versions of the records before validating them. In addition, zooniverse allows you to use the ‘unclear’ button to mark the text/s that you are unclear about when transcribing it, so that when validating the probate record, we will pay special attention to these texts marked as ‘unclear’ before we consider them to be correct.

What is a workflow?

A workflow is a category of documents that can be selected on the start page. In the TESTAMENTOS DE MURCIA project we have four different workflows:

• 15th-17th century wills (3.179 files)
• 18th century wills (8.944 files)
• 1800-1850 wills (13.935 files)
• 1851-1885 wills (10.305 files)

Is there a specific order in which to start transcribing?

You can choose the workflow of your choice. If the file has been transcribed correctly, it will disappear from the work area and will not appear again to another collaborator. The texts of the cards are in Spanish and typed, but sometimes handwritten letters appear with modifications and additions, which will be incorporated in fields previously configured in the workflow and which will appear as the transcription progresses.

Do you need to be proficient in Spanish to work on this project?

To participate in the zooniverse project it is not necessary to have a command of Spanish, since the transcriptions must be made literally as they appear on the cards and the workflow created for transcribing the cards is quite intuitive.

How do I know that I'm logged in via Zooniverse to save the work I've done?

In the upper right part of the screen, your username will appear, this way you will know if you are logged in. See the following image..

Do I need to Register separately on the site to work on this project?

It is not necessary to be registered, but in the tutorial we put a series of advantages of being registered. See image