Transcription at Native Bound Unbound

Developing a Standard

Transcription lies at the heart of Native Bound Unbound—it is the foundation on which all translation, analysis, and digital mapping depend. Under the direction of Dr. Aaron Taylor, NBU developed transcription standards that combine paleographic rigor with ethical care. These standards were built through comparative study of existing paleographic norms in various contexts. The goal was not simply to produce readable transcriptions but to define a process that could be transparent, verifiable, and expandable across languages and media. Each convention—from the handling of abbreviations and marginalia to the decisions on capitalization and punctuation—was tested and refined through collaborative review among the team. What emerged is a living standard: a framework flexible enough to accommodate a 17th-century legal dossier, an 18th-century baptismal register, or a 20th-century oral history.

Our general norms of transcription are below:

• Abbreviations are expanded without further comment.
• The original spelling in the manuscript is maintained with the following exceptions: 
• We have systemized the use of u and v in the manuscript to reflect modern usage. The former is used as a vowel and the latter, a consonant. 
• Names and places should be transcribed as they appear, except for the modifications mentioned above.
• We do NOT maintain accent use in transcriptions.
• We do NOT transcribe punctuation with the following exceptions:
  • Periods at the ends of paragraphs
  • Periods at the ends of other shorter entries, such as lists.
• Word separation is modernized.
• We capitalize the transcriptions as per modern standards in the given language.

Square brackets

• Square brackets in the text indicate insertions or explanations:
• [ILL] Illegible: An illegible section of text refers to missing text, damaged manuscript areas, blotted out text, or any other illegible areas.
• [^  ] Scribal addition or correction: A small caret indicates a scribal addition or correction.
• [  ?] Possible Reading: The use of square brackets with a question mark at the end of the square bracket indicates a possible transcription of a difficult reading.
• [*  ] Reconstruction: The use of square brackets with an asterisk inside the first bracket indicates a possible reconstruction of a missing or illegible section of text.
• [    ] Editorial addition: When the transcriber believes a correction is necessary given the scribe’s regular practice, they can add it using square brackets. For example, if the scribe always writes “los santos oleos” but in one record writes “los santo oleos”, the transcriber can correct it to “los santo[s] oleo”. 

Curly brackets

• Curly brackets enclose descriptive terms and information about format, the most common are
  • {rubric}
  • {left margin}
• Marginalia is indicated with {left margin} and the like. Marginalia is usually transcribed without line breaks

Parenthesis

• Parenthesis in the text indicate deletions
• (^  ): Parenthesis with a caret indicate a scribal deletion.
• (    ): Parenthesis without a caret indicate an editorial deletion with the following exception:.

Multiple Pathways of Practice

Because NBU works across a vast and multilingual archive, transcription occurs through distinct yet connected pathways: crowdsourced, professional, and audio. Each pathway follows the same norms but adapts them to the character of the material and the scale of the task. Regardless of the pathway described below, every transcription is reviewed carefully before being sent to the NBU Translation Team. NBU also realizes that paleography in any language is a learned skill. To that end, NBU’s system of review of transcriptions allows students, genealogist, and anyone interested the opportunity to transcribe a learn. 

1. Crowdsourced Transcription through FromThePage

Many NBU records, such as sacramental records, have been crowdsourced through FromThePage, an online crowdsourcing platform. This model invites volunteers, students, and community members to participate directly in recovering historical records. The work follows the norms above and all reviews are conducted by Feliza Monta Jameson, who also monitors progress on transcriptions, and ensures adherence to NBU transcription norms.

2. Professional Transcription for Complex Documents

For many of the most difficult records in terms of paleography, NBU employs small teams of professional paleographers. These groups, also coordinated by Dr. Taylor, work collaboratively and each transcription goes through several reviews prior to being sent to the Translation Team.

This tiered process blends quality control with mentorship—experienced scholars review student or emerging paleographers’ work, reinforcing best practices and sustaining collective accountability.

3. Audio Transcription and Oral Histories

Transcription at NBU also extends beyond written documents to include audio recordings and oral histories, reflecting the project’s commitment to recovering memory as well as text.

Researchers first identify interviews relevant to Indigenous slavery, then generate auto-transcriptions using software tools that produce a draft with timestamps. These drafts of audio transcriptions are then manually adjusted, but observe the same norms as above, with these added conventions:

• Timestamps appear roughly every minute.
• Speaker names precede dialogue.
• Non-speech sounds are indicated in curly brackets {laughter}.
• Regional expressions and interjections are preserved.
• In the case of lengthy audio files, only sections relevant to Indigenous slavery are transcribed in full, accompanied by contextual notes identifying people, places, and genealogical details.

If the transcription is in a language other than English, it is then transalted. Once finalized, each transcription is paired with a concise StoryBlock description, situating the conversation within its archival collection and summarizing its relevance to Indigenous slavery. These transcriptions are then prepared for translation, encoding in FairCopy, and eventual integration into NBU’s digital platform.

Languages and Expansion

NBU’s transcription protocols currently encompass Spanish, Portuguese, French, and English, each with its own detailed guide for idiosyncratic norms. Looking forward, NBU plans to extend this work to Dutch, Italian, and multiple Indigenous languages, in partnership with linguists, translators, and community experts.

A Collaborative Ethic

For Native Bound Unbound, transcription is both a scholarly and moral act. It recovers the words of those recorded under coercion or in the shadow of slavery, while foregrounding the humanity that the original documents often sought to erase. Whether through a community volunteer reading a baptismal record, a professional paleographer parsing a 300-page legal file, or a researcher transcribing an oral history, every act of transcription restores presence to the historical record.

Through its layered standards, multilingual reach, and integration of both written and spoken archives, Native Bound Unbound transforms transcription into a form of listening—attentive, precise, and profoundly human.