Work underway to digitize 1500s Fla. records

[steve2470]

http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Work-underway-to-digitize-1500s-Fla-records-4387350.php

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. (AP) — Inside a Catholic convent deep in St. Augustine's historic district, stacks of centuries-old, sepia-toned papers offer clues to what life was like for early residents of the nation's oldest permanently occupied city.

These parish documents date back to 1594, and they record the births, deaths, marriages and baptisms of the people who lived in St. Augustine from that time through the mid-1700s. They're the earliest written documents from any region of the United States, according to J. Michael Francis, a history professor at the University of South Florida.

Francis and some of his graduate students in the Florida Studies department have spent the past several months digitizing the more than 6,000 fragile pages to ensure the contents last beyond the paper's deterioration.

"The documents shed light on aspects of Florida history that are very difficult to reconstruct," Francis said.

[Sherman A1]

1. Thanks for Posting

interesting.

[onehandle]

2. I've spent a lot of time in St. Augustine over my life. It's a historic treasure. nt

[ReRe]

3. That would be a very interesting job to work on...

... I love old sepia colored documents!

[Thav]

4. More of this needs to be done.

Old texts and documents like this need to be preserved, and digitizing them is a great way to do it. It'd be really fun to read some of these old documents, and we can save them from destruction.