In January 2023, PRINT launched on Zooniverse, an online platform that helps facilitate our transcription process. Using Zooniverse, citizen scholars can go in and transcribe the letters that are part of the PRINT project, making them machine-readable and searchable for researchers and the general public.

As of March 2025, PRINT has had over 1500 active transcribers work on the letters. We are continuously looking for enthusiastic citizen scholars to transcribe. Through your participation, you will be a part of a collaborative effort to uncover historical stories, making them accessible to all, while learning valuable research and paleography skills.

To get started, you can access our Zooniverse page and fill out our volunteer form.

English/Quaker Letters Transcription Manual

PRINT has created a transcription manual for the English language Quaker letters in the portal. This transcription manual provides transcription guidelines, and materials to assist in transcribing.

German Transcription Manual

PRINT has created a German-Language transcription manual to assist with transcribing German letters in the portal.

YouTube Tutorial Videos

In this instructional video series, the PRINT team explains how to understand and read seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English handwriting. Through the letters of Phineas Pemberton, an English Quaker shopkeeper who migrated to Pennsylvania in the 1680s, viewers will learn the methods of paleography. The videos present helpful tips and tricks for how to identify dated characters/symbols, discern illegible words by building context, read different dating systems, and accurately record transcribed data according to modern editorial standards.

You can access the playlist of this series by clicking here.