This is a project I thought people might be interested in. From the project's about page :
This crowd-sourcing transcription project is a collaboration between historians, social scientists and the African American Civil War Museum. Our goals are to improve our knowledge of the African Americans who fought for freedom in the American Civil War, to provide descendants of the soldiers with access to information on their ancestors, and to present students of history with primary documents from a pivotal moment in African American history. To do this we are building a comprehensive database of the estimated 200,000 soldiers who formed the United States Colored Troops (USCT) (see FAQ for more info on the USCT).
We are transcribing images of the soldiers' military service records, which have been photographed and scanned by the National Archives and Records Administration and Fold 3. From these we are collecting detailed individual information such as name, age, height, place of birth and enlistment, as well as evidence of battles fought, injuries and casualties sustained, and honors and promotions won. Our interface allows users to highlight such evidence, bringing it to the attention of scholars and the public.
The completed database will be presented on the website of the African American Civil War Museum. This website will allow teachers and students to explore African American history, by presenting them with interactive maps and a searchable database of all the soldiers. The database will help users to identify ancestors who fought in the Civil War. It will also allow scholars to follow the lives of African American veterans after the war, matching individual soldiers to military pension files and census records, following the great example of the Union Army Data project. In this way we hope to trace the broader impact of African American service on the post-war social, political, and racial order.
The Classify tab allows you to get start after a very short tuturial.
