Military historians have been given a helping hand after researchers at RUSI in London digitised its extensive archives.
The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) has announced that it has finished digitising its records relating to the careers of soldiers serving in the British armed forces since the mid-eighteenth century.
Up until the end of last month, researchers keen to consult the RUSI’s extensive collection of records needed to visit its library on Whitehall in central London.
Now, however, with a small team of archivists having made use of the latest document scanning solutions to carry out their work, both academics and amateur historians can consult records dating back to 1754 from the comfort of their own homes.
The successful completion of the project was only made possible by the Army Heritage Branch, which worked with RUSI archivists to fill any gaps in the records, with this collating of relevant information only completed at the end of last year.
This means that anyone can go online and search for any officer serving at any point over the past 260 years and track their career from rank to rank, a highly useful resource for specialists investigating the inner workings of the British armed forces.
Alongside career progression records, other highlights of the newly-digitised collection include records relating to rules concerning military dress published back in 1832 and warrants issued to officers serving in the mid-eighteenth century.
This is just the latest in a long list of digitising projects to have been completed over recent weeks.
On the other side of the world, armchair local historians in Bega Valley, Australia, are celebrating after a number of regional and local newspapers joined forced to use document scanning solutions to digitise editions going back more than 100 years.
According to the Eden Magnet – one of the titles involved in the initiative – around a dozen papers made use of funding from the National Library of Australia to put their archives online, with editors confident the new database will help build a better understanding of local history.
If you are keen to carry out a similar project using your records, just give Dajon Data Management a call to discuss a bespoke solution.