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Local History: Citizen Historian Center
About
Help contribute to our shared past while living in the present! Provide an oral history of an event that you, or someone you know lived through, transcribe historic letters, preserve your own history for future generations to study, and more! Explore these programs today!
Citizen Archivist Program: National Archives
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Citizen Archivist Program
You can contribute to the National Archives Catalog by tagging, transcribing and adding comments to our records, making them more accessible and searchable. Join us! Every contribution you make helps unlock history.
StoryCorps
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StoryCorps
StoryCorps’ mission is to preserve and share humanity’s stories in order to build connections between people and create a more just and compassionate world.
We do this to remind one another of our shared humanity, to strengthen and build the connections between people, to teach the value of listening, and to weave into the fabric of our culture the understanding that everyone’s story matters. At the same time, we are creating an invaluable archive for future generations.
American Folklife Center
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American Folklife Center
The American Folklife Center was created in 1976 by the U.S. Congress to "preserve and present American folklife" through programs of research, documentation, archival preservation, reference service, live performance, exhibitions, publications, and training. Designated by the U.S. Congress as the national center for folklife documentation and research, the American Folklife Center continues to collect and document living traditional culture, while preserving for the future its unparalleled collections in the state-of-the-art preservation facilities of the Library of Congress.
The American Folklife Center Archive, established in the Library of Congress Music Division in 1928, is now one of the largest archives of ethnographic materials from the United States and around the world, encompassing millions of items of ethnographic and historical documentation recorded from the nineteenth century to the present. These collections, which include extensive audiovisual documentation of traditional arts, cultural expressions, and oral histories, offer researchers access to the songs, stories, and other creative expressions of people from diverse communities.
Local History Projects
These projects are sponsored, and facilitated by local cultural, or historical organizations, as well as community members!
Washingtonville Cemetery Veteran's Project
The Washingtonville Cemetery has started on a monumental project to document, digitize, photograph, and commemorate those interred in our historic cemetery. Linda Standish and Jill Moore have been working diligently through old cemetery ledgers, newspaper articles, military records, NSDAR records, and much more to compile and build the cemetery’s first complete database of burials. This database will allow for an accurate count of interments, allow for easier identification of veterans, and will allow the town historian to provide more accurate information when genealogical or historical inquiries are made.
They actively welcome fellow citizen historians to help with the documentation process! Interested parties can go on Find A Grave to identify and submit photographs for profiles that lack images, or they can submit information for the database. Linda and Jill are seeking photos, obituaries, stories, news articles, Bible records, or any other information families would like to provide on those who are buried at the cemetery. Please email them at wvillecemetery@gmail.com if you have any questions or would like to provide them with any records or information.
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OU-BOCES COVID-19 Witnessing History Project
Orange-Ulster BOCES’ Division of Instructional Support Services is looking for students to participate in our Witnessing History Project. We are experiencing a unique period in history, activity worldwide has come to a near pause. The Coronavirus Pandemic has closed schools, stopped work, and caused people to stay at home. We are asking students from grades K-12 to share in our project by documenting their account of living through these historic times in the Lower Hudson Valley