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Reposted by Harry Smith

The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

📢AUTUMN NEWSLETTER OUT TODAY📢 This edition includes an important update on some changes to the team that impact the project's future. Those on our mailing list should have a copy in their inbox, for others see below, or DM your address to receive a pdf. #EarlyModern 🗃️ #DigitalHumanities #HTR

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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

📢PROJECT UPDATE📢 You may have seen the news that the University of Exeter, home of the wills project, has placed 500 academics at risk of redundancy. The project leader Prof. Jane Whittle & project co-investigator Dr Laura Sangha are both at risk, alongside almost all of the History department. 1/

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Dr Laura Sangha @lsangha.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Welcome to my new followers! Before I was put at risk of redundancy last month I was working on a chapter on 16th-18th-century finger rings. 💍 My sample is around 10,000 rings mentioned in 30,000 English wills from 1540-1790. 1/

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Dr Laura Sangha @lsangha.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

🥳 Enormous congratulations to my outstanding colleague & friend Prof. Jane Whittle, on her election to the Fellowship of the British Academy. Jane is a world renowned scholar of the history of work & gender in preindustrial Europe. She currently leads The Material Culture of Wills project. 🗃️

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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

📢 NEW WILL OF THE MONTH POST 📢 June's post explores the will of a Tudor clergyman who forfeited much of his property in the turmoil of the Henrician Reformation📜 His fortunes improved: his will reveals material comfort & ownership of many fine & decorative items sites.exeter.ac.uk/materialcult...

A photography of an ornate sixteenth century tapestry. It is primarily green, with plants and flowers depicted in blue, cream, and orange hues, as well as birds, and a pale unicorn in the centre. The image is: Tapestry fragment woven in wool and silk, depicting a unicorn, Flanders, ca.1500, © Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2026 https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O84543/tapestry-unknown/

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Royal Historical Society @royalhistsoc.org · 23/06/2026

Over the coming week, we feature the 8 monographs and 8 articles shortlisted for the Society's 2026 First Book and Early Career Article prizes. Today: 'Birth, Death, and Domestic Religion in Early Modern London', by Emily Vine (Cambridge University Press) bit.ly/3SsnvWo 1/2 #Skystorians

Cover image of 'Birth, Death, and Domestic Religion in Early Modern London'

by Emily Vine (Cambridge University Press)

SHORTLISTED

Royal Historical Society
First Book Prize, 2026

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Emily Vine @emilymayvine.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

📢 New 'Will of the Month' Post over at @materialwills.bsky.social For May we look at the will of Mary Skelton, who died in Greenwich in 1725, and used her will to call out her son's undutiful behaviour 👇 @uoearchhist.bsky.social @uniofexeterhass.bsky.social @cemsexeter.bsky.social #history

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Dr Laura Sangha @lsangha.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Many congratulations to @emilymayvine.bsky.social whose excellent 'Birth, Death & Domestic Religion in #EarlyModern London' has been shortlisted for the RHS first book prize! 🗃️🥳👏

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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

📢 NEW PROJECT BLOG POST 📢 Something a bit different from our 'Will of the Month' posts... 📜 Our Principal Investigator, Jane Whittle, explains the different ways we can approach and work with 30,000 will transcriptions 🧵1/3 #EarlyModern @uoearchhist.bsky.social sites.exeter.ac.uk/materialcult...

sites.exeter.ac.uk

What to do with 30,000 wills? Three Approaches

Jane Whittle, Wills Project Principal Investigator The wills project has now successfully transcribed more than 30,000 early modern wills from the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, with at least 5000 f...

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Cambridge University History Faculty @camhistory.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

How @camunicampop.bsky.social researchers are turning static snapshots of Victorian Britain into dynamic life histories. The team are linking over 200 million census records, revealing how people moved, worked and lived in ways never before possible. 🔎 Read on 👉 www.hist.cam.ac.uk/news/tracing...

How researchers are linking over 200 million census records to transform historical research

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Emily Vine @emilymayvine.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

There's a new 'Will of the Month' post over on the @materialwills.bsky.social blog! 📜 Read on to find out about the will of Sir Francis Cottington, who left money and jewellery to Catholic institutions in Valladolid 👇 #Skystorians #History @uoearchhist.bsky.social @uniofexeterhass.bsky.social

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Dr Laura Sangha @lsangha.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

May I present the best tombstone in Bath Abbey

A dark grey tombstone engraved with the legend 'The Very Ingenious Mr Harvey. Died Oct. 20th 1742'.

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Dr Laura Sangha @lsangha.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

The Wills Project went to Bath!

Six people standing in front of a large Georgian building, stained with the soot of years of pollution.

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Dr Laura Sangha @lsangha.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

BONUS: me, @bhamhistory.bsky.social and @emilymayvine.bsky.social from the material culture of wills project will be there at lunch if you want to come and talk to us about crowdsourcing volunteers, Handwritten Text Recognition, wills as songs, huge datasets ... or anything else! 📜🗃️ #EarlyModern

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Dr Laura Sangha @lsangha.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

📢FIRST FEATURED WILL OF 2026📢 'if it shall please God to afflict me before my Death’. Emily explores the will of Mary Young, who anticipated that she might lose mental or physical capacity at the end. #EarlyModern 🗃️ @leverhulme.ac.uk @uoearchhist.bsky.social sites.exeter.ac.uk/materialcult...

Photo of an English village, showing a lane with terraced white houses to the left of it and a parish church further along.

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Dr Laura Sangha @lsangha.bsky.social · 22/12/2025

🎄CHRISTMAS BLOG POST!🎄 A silly gift for you all: I dug through The National Archive wills looking for Christmassy names. There were a lot, inc: Mr 🎅 Christopher 🍮 ❄️ Green Thomas 🦃 Theophilia 🛷 sites.exeter.ac.uk/materialcult... 📜 #EarlyModern 🗃️ @leverhulme.ac.uk @uoearchhist.bsky.social

Woodcut showing three men. Two are dressed in 17th century clothesm the one in the centre is in a long robe with a fun hat. The man on the left says 'Keep out, you come not here', the one on the right says 'Old Christmas welcome, no not fear'. The man in the centre says 'O Sir I bring good cheere'.

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Emily Vine @emilymayvine.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

December's 'Will of the Month' post is live over at @materialwills.bsky.social 👇 Featuring parrots, Spanish wine, Venetian carpets & a commissioned altarpiece featuring the testator 🧔‍♂️🖼️ @uniofexeterhass.bsky.social @uoearchhist.bsky.social @cemsexeter.bsky.social #history #SkyStorians #EarlyModern

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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

📢 NEW 'Project Progress Update' Blog Post! 📢 We've recently reached a very significant project milestone, and thought this would be the perfect moment to provide a research update: sites.exeter.ac.uk/materialcult... Featuring @zooniverse.bsky.social news, and a sneak peek at our database! 📜✍️💻

A screenshot from our Zooniverse website, with a banner that shows that the project data has now been completed. The webpage contains black, green, and gold banners spanning across the top of the page, and the title of the Zooniverse project 'The Material Culture of Wills: England 1540-1790'. On the left half of the screen is a close up of an early modern manuscript, and on the right half, a textual description of the zooniverse project, featuring grey text on a white background.

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Harry Smith @bhamhistory.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

New paper out now with Laura Newman and David Green on poor eyesight in the UK Post Office - a pretty common cause of retirement until the end of the nineteenth century - t.co/sm6kUga1tM

t.co

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/historical-journal/article/vision-impairment-and-the-british-post-office-c1860-to-1910/DB88CD6F9B95D0C818C70286E1ABD5D5

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Dr Laura Sangha @lsangha.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

Couple of wills talks coming up: I'm presenting to the Devonshire Association, Tavistock & West Devon branch on Friday. Then next Friday @bhamhistory.bsky.social & I are giving a talk at a joint Devon History Society & Devon Archaeological society workshop at Devon Heritage Centre. 🗃️

7 people stand in front of two banners showing info about the Leverhulme Trust project, The Material Culture of Wills: England 1540-1790. The people are smiling.

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John Benning @jbenning.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

We're excited to share the final version of our paper, where we demonstrate how confounding remains a thorny problem for claims about causal genetic influences on human behavioral and socioeconomic outcomes. (w/ @jedidiahcarlson.com @oliviarxiv.bsky.social Ruth Shaw @arbelharpak.bsky.social) 🧵👇

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Dr Laura Sangha @lsangha.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

📜WILLS ON THE RADIO!📜 The brilliant Chris Hoban was on local radio talking about the wills project and playing some songs! This one is perhaps my favourite: based on the will of London widow Alice Walter, proved September 1665. TNA PROB 11/317/428. #EarlyModern 🗃️ www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXwB...

youtube.com

Chris Hoban - Rings On My Fingers (one )

YouTube video by Will Pollard

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Tim Hitchcock @timhitchcock.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

Really pleased to announce the launch of the all-new, all-dancing, London Lives website - www.londonlives.org It has been thoroughly re-engineered to facilitate more types of search, and redesigned for phones and tablets. The team very much hopes peope like it. 1/

londonlives.org

London Lives

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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

It's been a busy week for the project! 1. A huge milestone: we're delighted to share that our @zooniverse.bsky.social volunteers have now checked ALL images! 🎉 Thank you to everyone who has contributed. We're going to pause Zooniverse for now while we evaluate if more training is required. 🧵1/4

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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

📢 NEW Will of the Month Post 📢 October's will is an unusual & poignant example of a married woman who made a will Margery Gadyng died in childbirth in 1540 - she declared her will to the midwife & women attending her, leaving them bequests of ribbons & rosaries sites.exeter.ac.uk/materialcult...

A photograph of a rosary - a loop of string threaded with brown beads, some with symbols painted on them. Rosary of 30 unglazed earthenware beads of red and black clay, British Museum 2009,8038.1.a-b https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_2009-8038-1-a-b?selectedImageId=1310905001
© The Trustees of the British Museum

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Emily Vine @emilymayvine.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

Looking forward to speaking at this with @bhamhistory.bsky.social next week - on all things to do with Digitization & Citizen Science 📜💻 @emeccwarwick.bsky.social @uoearchhist.bsky.social @zooniverse.bsky.social @transkribus.bsky.social #history #citizenscience #skystorians #digitalhumanities

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Hampton Gaddy @hggaddy.bsky.social · 06/10/2025

🚨 The Economist has been telling you for years that polygamy causes civil war by locking men out of marriage. A new article with @rebeccasear.bsky.social and @anthrolog.bsky.social explains that the demography of marriage markets doesn't actually work that way. 🧵 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

pnas.org

High rates of polygyny do not lock large proportions of men out of the marriage market | PNAS

There is a widespread belief, in both the scholarly literature and the popular press, that polygyny prevents large numbers of men from marrying by ...

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Emily Vine @emilymayvine.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

Autumn 2025 Newsletter for the @materialwills.bsky.social project coming soon - make sure you're signed up to our mailing list to receive a copy! 👇

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Jennifer Aston @drjenniferaston.bsky.social · 14/09/2025

@greenleejw.bsky.social has written a blog about the amazing maps he created for 'Deserted Wives'! With help from @bhamhistory.bsky.social, we recreated jurisdiction boundary lines & his final maps really underpin the book's thesis. Deserted Wives has 30% off: www.bloomsbury.com/uk/deserted-...

bloomsbury.com

Deserted Wives and Economic Divorce in 19th-Century England and Wales

This book considers Section 21 of the Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act 1857 and its significant impact on previously invisible married women in the 19th centu…

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Dr Laura Sangha @lsangha.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

📢NEW POST!📢 This year I had the thrill of collaborating with Chris Hoban, a brilliant composer, arranger, songwriter & performer. In this post I explain what we got up to👇 sites.exeter.ac.uk/materialcult... #EarlyModern 🗃️ #CreativeHistories @uniofexeterhass.bsky.social @uoearchhist.bsky.social

A group of five photographs, the first two show Laura Sangha and Chris Hoban talking to a seated audience, Chris plays guitar and accordian. One shows two workshop attendees transfering designs onto squares of lino. Another shows two attendees working on their linocuts, the final photo shows a person applying ink to the surface of their linocut.

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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

We post regularly over on our blog - this includes our 'Will of the Month' series, as well as other discussions of research and project updates 📜✍️📚 We've now been writing blog posts for 18 months: you can search and filter all of them to find what you're looking for 👇 #skystorians #history

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Dr Laura Sangha @lsangha.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

📢WILLS WEBSITE UPDATE📢 I've just added some new 'tags' to the index page of our blog, making it easier for you to find posts and full transcriptions about the wills we've featured #EarlyModern 🗃️ sites.exeter.ac.uk/materialcult...

A list of the tags used on the wills project blog:

16th century

17th century

18th century

Women’s wills

Men’s wills

Full transcriptions

Animals

Books

Burial

Charity

Clothing

Creative Fellow

Digital Humanities

Financial devices

Furniture

Global goods

Grandchildren

Jewellery

India

Jewellery

London

Making wills

Maritime

Project methodology

Rural

Silverware

Slavery

Tableware

Teaching

Urban

Volunteers

Work tools

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Emily Vine @emilymayvine.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

We include a full transcription as part of every 'Will of the Month' post! 📜✍️ We've now made 20 transcribed wills available, featuring the lives of a range of men and women who lived in early modern England (and further afield)👇 @leverhulme.ac.uk @uniofexeterhass.bsky.social 🧵2/2

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Emily Vine @emilymayvine.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

The August 'Will of the Month' post is now live over on the @materialwills.bsky.social blog 📜 It explores the will of a Huguenot silk weaver who left money to the French church & bequeathed the tools 'belonging to a Weavers' Trade' @uoearchhist.bsky.social #history #earlymodern #skystorians 1/2 🧵

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Helen McCarthy @historianhelen.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

In 1908, means-tested, non-contributory Old Age Pensions were introduced in Britain, payable from the age of 70. Here, incredibly, are photographs of two of the first citizens to claim them (plus a dog).

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Alice Reid @amrcampop.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

We've done it: 60 blogs over our 60th Anniversary Year! Check out all 60 #Campop blogs here www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/, and keep your eyes peeled for occasional blogs to follow in the same space! @camunicampop.bsky.social @camunigeography.bsky.social @camhistory.bsky.social

campop.geog.cam.ac.uk

The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, Cambridge

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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

📢 New Will of the Month post 📢 How do we write about those who left little behind, both in terms of possessions, & evidence in the historical record? 📜 This month's post explores the life of a servant woman, Mary Carlton, who had few objects to bequeath other than her 'box' 🧵1/2 #skystorians

A greyscale eighteenth -century print of a servant woman being turned out of a house and on to the streets. The woman exits a door and down some steps in the centre of the painting, two other women stand in the doorway behind her, the streets are filled with destitute looking people. Thomas Gaugain: Diligence and Dissipation: The Wanton turn’d out of Doors for Misconduct (Plate 5) (1797) Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:20235

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Emily Kadens @ek27.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

The @transkribus.bsky.social "Egerton: English Secretary Hand" model is now public! app.transkribus.org/models/publi.... We have a website with sample transcriptions for different hands, information about our training conventions, and more: sites.northwestern.edu/egerton/

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Dr Laura Sangha @lsangha.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

If you'd like to see what we got up to, one of our postgraduates [ @kmbarton.bsky.social ] did an absolutely amazing job of live posting on this thread 👇 #EarlyModern 🗃️ #transcribaton #crowdsourcing #DigitalHums @leverhulme.ac.uk @uniofexeterhass.bsky.social sky.social @uoearchhist.bsky.social

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Alice Reid @amrcampop.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

Campop blog #59: Some say rises in lone motherhood since c.1950 indicate breakdown of the nuclear family & call for returns to Victorian values. But 19C levels of lone parenthood & reconstituted families were similar to today's ... @camunicampop.bsky.social www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2025/07...

campop.geog.cam.ac.uk

The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, Cambridge

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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

This is happening this afternoon - we'll be posting throughout the session, including details of talks being given by members of the research team 📜✍️ You can follow along with the hashtag #transcribathon

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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 23/07/2025

If you're planning to drop in on our hybrid historic wills transcribathon tomorrow, here's the running order of talks from the research team 📜✍️ Find this and further info on the Eventbrite page at: willstranscribathon.eventbrite.com #skystorians #history #tudors #earlymodern #citizenscience

Screenshot of running order of hybrid transcribathon talks:

13.00 Welcome – Laura Sangha

13.15 Using Zooniverse – Harry Smith

13.30 Introduction to the project - Jane Whittle

13.45 Genealogy, family heirlooms, and interesting objects – Emily Vine

14.15 How volunteers teach the computer - Mark Bell

14.45 A first look at the data, 1785-6 - Harry Smith

15.15 Two short talks:

Single people and Gender in Wills – Kit Barton

Tales of the Unexpected – Laura Sangha

15.45 What will we do with all the data? - Jane Whittle

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Alice Reid @amrcampop.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

Campop blog #58: Malthusian ideas about the effects of population pressure on resources and the environment are still widespread. But what did Malthus actually say? And was he right? Romola Davenport explains. @camunicampop.bsky.social www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2025/07...

campop.geog.cam.ac.uk

The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, Cambridge

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Dr Laura Sangha @lsangha.bsky.social · 02/07/2025

Will Johnson and Barbara Tearle have also generously shared their research notes too, so you can browse a spreadsheet summarising Edward's bequests, a biography, tally of objects and glossary too. sites.exeter.ac.uk/materialcult... #EarlyModern 🗃️

sites.exeter.ac.uk

Will of the Month: A country squire and Castle Keeper to a Duke and a King

Will Johnson, Barbara Tearle, Emily Vine This edition of our ‘Will of the Month’ series is a very special one. It’s the fruit of a collaboration: the research and transcription were completed by Zooni...

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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

📢 NEW Will of the Month Post! 📢 This month's post is a very special collaboration with 2 of our @zooniverse.bsky.social volunteers - Will Johnson & Barbara Tearle They've put a huge amount of work into researching the life of the testator, Edward Fetiplace 🧵1/3 sites.exeter.ac.uk/materialcult...

A photograph of Donnington castle - a medieval looking castle tower on the left side of the image, green grass in the foreground, and blue sky with white clouds. Our testator Edward Fetiplace was the steward of Donnington Castle in the 1530s, this photo shows the surviving gatehouse, by Mik Peach https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Berkshire-DonningtonCastle.jpg

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Dr Laura Sangha @lsangha.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

📢WILLS TRANSCRIBATHON KLAXON📢 Join us on Thursday 24 July to transcribe wills and go behind the scenes of the wills project! In person and on Zoom - full details & registration here: willstranscribathon.eventbrite.com #EarlyModern 🗃️ #transcription @leverhulme.ac.uk @uniofexeterhass.bsky.social

Promotional image advertising 'Wills Project Transcribathon, Thursday 24 July, 1-4pm BST, Digital Humanities Lab University of Exeter and on Zoom. The image also features a portrait of a man making his will, a photo of a box of wills and a page of a will.

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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

📢 A NEW WILLS PROJECT EVENT! 📢 📅 Thursday 24 July 🕐 1-4pm BST Join us online or in person in Exeter for a hybrid wills Transcribathon 📜✍️ Transcribe on Zooniverse alongside like-minded volunteers & help transcribe as many wills as possible! Sign up here: willstranscribathon.eventbrite.com 🧵1/2

A poster advertising the 'Wills Project Transcribathon' on Thursday 24 July, 1-4pm BST, in the Digital Humanities Lab at the University of Exeter, and on zoom. The poster features black text on green and yellow backgrounds, and three images - a box of folded will manuscripts, an unfolded will manuscript, and the painting Thomas Braithwaite of Ambleside making his will, Abbot Hall, 1607. Photo: Lakeland Arts.

The poster text reads: ' - Transcribe on Zooniverse alongside like-minded volunteers, - Learn more about English wills from 1540-1790 during talks from the experts, - Share & discuss interesting discoveries, - Attend for all or part of the event, - Contribute to academic research & help make these remarkable documents more accessible for all'.
Details of the event can be found at this address: https://willstranscribathon.eventbrite.com

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Dr Laura Sangha @lsangha.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

Objects of the day: 'Itm vj quysshons of tapstre worke with flowers and ij dogges feightynge for a bone'. This is from the June will of the month - blog post coming soon! 🗃️ #EarlyModern 🌺🐕🐕🦴

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