FAQ

What is Metadata and why are we collecting it?

Simply, metadata is data about other data. Metadata about a telegram can be information like sender, recipient, date sent, date received, location, keywords, etc. We use metadata to describe digital resources so that they are easier to find, connect to, and use. Metadata also allows the gathering together of like items that might be scattered. This is what search engines do on the Internet. Using the term or keyword a person inputs, the search engine uses metadata on the web to find all items that have been described using that term and pulls them together into one search result. That is why we are asking users to help us gather metadata about each telegram in Phase 2. We wish to provide simple metadata that will enable researchers to find all the telegrams to, say, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, no matter whether it is in Ledger 2, or 6, or 22.

Why not simply use full-text searching? The transcriptions are accurate to the text as written in the ledger. If you typed in “Stanton” in the search box, you would get those pages where “Stanton” matches the search. But what if the telegram begins or ends with “EMS” or “Stantin” or “the Secretary of War”? The full-text search would ignore those pages. Furthermore, such a search looks at the whole message and returns results for any mention of “Stanton,” including other people named Stanton or places named Stanton. What if you want to look for Stanton only as the recipient? A search in a specific metadata field for “recipient” would enable that search and give you the correct results.

To aid in that search we will take the metadata tagged by the volunteers and standardize the terms. So, sticking with Stanton, if the recipient is “EMS” and it is tagged as such, we will be able to take the consensus term and edit it to the standardized form of “Stanton, Edwin M. (Edwin McMasters), 1814-1869.” Once all the telegrams are tagged and the fields edited, if you do a specific search for “Recipient” as “Stanton, Edwin M. (Edwin McMasters), 1814-1869.” you will only get those telegrams to Stanton, not from or about him, and you will have those whether they are sent to him as “EMS,” “Stanton,” or “Stantin.”

The tagging of individual telegrams will enable searches to be done across the almost 16,000 telegrams. It will enable users to look for specific individuals or places or dates. We are asking for metadata for 10 fields. Most telegrams have only a few; rarely do they have all 10. You won’t have to standardize the tagged fields; we will do that after consensus. Metadata, when it is assembled with accuracy and care, is a very powerful tool for improving search results, and thus, research.

How I do I find the Metadata?
Sometimes it's easy to identify a particular piece of metadata, but sometimes it's not! This section should provide you with a better understanding of the metadata you are being asked to find. The big secret for this task is that context makes a huge difference for some of these fields, so toggling between the transcription and the image is super helpful! Click on the circles below the viewing window to alternate between image and text (please note, you can only do the highlighting on the text, not the image!).

Recipient - The person to whom the telegram was sent
Almost every telegram that you look at will have a Recipient. Their name is usually right at the beginning of a telegram, as in the example at the top of this page:

The recipient here is the very first part of the body of the telegram. You will notice that "Gen" has been highlighted here. Please include peoples' titles, like "General", "Mister", or "Secretary".
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In this telegram, you can see that the recipient's name is omitted, and only his title "SecWar" or "Secretary of War" is included. In the absence of a proper name, highlight their title.
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Some messages include addressing words such as "To" or "For" - these do NOT need to be highlighted.
*Note that there may sometimes be more than one recipient! In those cases, highlight each of them. In other cases there are no recipients - that's okay!

Date Received - The date when the telegram was received at its destination
The Date Received is usually pretty easy to identify when there are two dates given because it's always the later one!

This information is almost never included in the body of the telegram, so if you see a date within the telegram text, it is the Date Sent.
Sometimes the receiving telegrapher does us a favor and writes "Recd" or "Rcvd" next to the date, which identifies it unequivocally as the date the telegram was received.

The Date Received won't always include month, date, and year, so just highlight as much of it as is present.

Place Received - Where the telegram was received
The most common place to find the Place Received, which could also be thought of as the telegram's destination, is immediately following the Recipient.

If two locations are given, and one of them is embedded within the text of the message, that will most likely be the Place Received. In this message "Astor House" is where the message was sent from; it was being sent to Stanton in Washington, D.C., indicated by the "Washn" following "Secy of War".
The other area to look for Place Received is in the upper left corner, above the body of the text, where it is sometimes recorded next to the name of the receiving telegrapher.

In this message, the place received is repeated, using slightly different language, "Ft. Monroe" and "Ft M.". Highlight both, if they are different.

Sometimes there will not be a specific location, but the headquarters of a particular Army or General, the name of a ship, or an approximate location, like "near Gettysburg". Highlight these as well. In this Case "Head Quarters a of P" or Headquarters, Army of the Potomac.

Time Received - The time that the telegram arrived at its destination
The Time Received is usually in the upper left corner, above the body of the message.

The Time Received is also usually near the Date Received, when it is given.
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If only one date is given, but there are two times, the later one is Time Received.
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This last example gives us an additional clue that this is Time Received, since the date it follows is preceded by "Recd", or "Received".

Receiving Telegrapher - The telegrapher who received the telegram
Though not always recorded, the name of the telegrapher who received the message will often be noted above the text of the telegram.

The telegrapher's name frequently precedes the location of the telegraph station where they were working. If you want to confirm that the person whose name you highlight was a telegrapher, you can consult a list of USMT operators assembled by Richard Plum in volume two of his The military telegraph during the civil war in the United States.

Sender - The person who sent the telegram
The Sender of the message is usually recorded at the end of the telegram, within the body of the message.

Oftentimes the Sender's name will be preceded by "signed" or "sig", as in the above telegram. No need to highlight these, they are just a helpful clue.
Sometimes the Sender's name will be below the main body of the message.
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Date Sent - The date when the telegram was sent
The Date Sent is usually pretty easy to identify when there are two dates given because it's always the earlier one!

This information is frequently included in the body of the telegram, so if you see a date within the telegram text, it is the Date Sent.
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If it is not in the body of the telegram, the date that a telegram was sent is usually recorded in the upper right corner, above the body.
Because it appears regularly in these two different places, there is often repetition. If the date is recorded in two different ways, highlight both.
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The Date Sent won't always include month, date, and year, highlight as much of it as is present.

Place Sent From - Where the telegram was sent from
The most common place to find the Place Sent From, which could also be thought of as the telegram's point of origin, is in the upper right corner above the body of the message.

If the Place Sent From is included in the body of a telegram, it is usually in the first line, before the name of the Recipient.

Sometimes it is preceded by "From", a helpful clue that does not need to be highlighted.
The locations given aren't always precise, so if you see a location like "Near Gettysburg" highlight the entire phrase.

In this message, the place received is given twice with slightly different information. Please highlight both of them.

Sometimes there will not be a specific location, but the headquarters of a particular Army or General, or the name of a ship. Highlight that as well.

Time Sent - The time that the telegram was sent
The Time Sent is usually in the upper right corner, above the body of the message.

The Time Sent is also generally near the Date Sent, when it is given.
If a time is at the end of a telegram, it is almost certainly the Time Sent.
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If only one date is given, but there are two times, the earlier one is Time Sent.
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Sending Telegrapher - The telegrapher who sent the telegram
One of the most infrequently recorded pieces of information (at least in the uncoded telegrams) is the Sending Telegrapher. This is the operator who transmitted the message out over the wires. When it is present, it tends to appear below the body of the telegram.

If you want to confirm that the person whose name you highlight was a telegrapher, you can consult a list of USMT operators assembled by Richard Plum in volume two of his The military telegraph during the civil war in the United States.

Where have the Coded Messages and Code Words gone?

In our first Beta test many questions were raised about the marking of code words, or arbitraries, by the volunteers. It was pointed out that a similar function could be completed by running a script to highlight known code words. This machine generated highlighted text could then be quickly reviewed by humans looking for errors or missed code words. After reviewing the data received from the beta test for the Code Word workflow, it was determined that the coded messages would indeed be pulled so that we could focus on the metadata for the messages in the clear.

The coded messages will be pulled into our Phase Three part of the project where the identified coded messages will be marked, reviewed, and then decoded. This aspect of the project is in the future, and there is much that needs to be worked out. But the results and the advice from our volunteers focused our efforts to develop better ways for tackling the code word identification issue. Thank you to all those who helped.

I found a mistake in the transcription! What should I do?

Well, nuts. In spite of all of our best efforts, the consensus transcriptions are not perfect. We will be making corrections to them for years to come. If you find what you believe to be a mistake in the transcription (and not a mistake in the original text itself, which we are preserving for accuracy's sake), finish your classification and click "Done", then on the next page click on "Talk" to reach a talk board dedicated to that telegram. Use the hashtag #consensuscorrections and explain where the mistake is. We will do our best to check these corrections regularly and will update the transcription in the Huntington Digital Library to reflect the correct text. Thank you for your attention to detail and accuracy!