Green Bench Monthly - Vol. 7, Issue 1, January 2022

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Puente Map of St. Augustine. Courtesy of La Florida: The Interactive Digital Archive of the Americas

La Florida and Lost Voices from America’s Oldest Parish Archive, 1594-1821. By Tina Stewart Brakebill Dotted with historical markers identifying significant places, people, and events from its past, St. Augustine has long served as a tourist attraction because of its status as the oldest continuously inhabited European-established settlement in what is now the contiguous United States. History, however, is not just a marker on a building or street; it is the story we tell about the past. And unlike the simplistic permanence that a metal marker implies, research conducted by a team of St. Petersburgbased historians reveals that the history of St. Augustine and its people is more diverse and nuanced than previously thought. Because most of the fragile documents helping to inform this research are written in Spanish or Latin, they’ve been mostly inaccessible except to the most devoted of academic researchers. La Florida: The Interactive Digital Archive of the Americas aims to change that by opening up this treasure trove to a global audience with its new initiative: Lost Voices from America’s Oldest Parish Archive.

The Digital Archive of the Americas: Early Days The beginnings of this innovative digital archive can be traced back to a humble spreadsheet created by Dr. J. Michael Francis. As a professor of history and chair of the Hough Family Florida Studies program at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, Francis spent years cataloging the names he came across in the course of his archival research. In 2018, with the help of some technological experts from Spain, the data in this

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spreadsheet became La Florida, an open-access searchable database with biographical data for more than 4,000 individuals. It was a promising start, but the newly formed team didn’t stop there. The St. Augustine’s Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church allowed the La Florida team to digitize the handwritten parish records held by the archives and add them to the website. Composed of nearly 9,000 fragile documents dating from 1594 to the late nineteenth century, these vital records provide rare insight into the daily lives and relationships of the diverse population of Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans who resided in St. Augustine. These digitized pages were an important addition, but Francis and his team had an even bigger idea. They wanted to recreate the La Florida Digital Archives website so that the records could become part of an innovative and interactive experience that all kinds of people could use, from school kids and teachers to genealogists and scholars. To bring this big idea into reality, they needed help. Luckily, the National Archives provided that boost in the form of a $250,000 two-year grant.

Lost Voices Found This grant allowed the team to begin translating and transcribing the original handwritten documents. Damaged paper, challenging handwriting, faded ink and the sheer number of pages kept four people busy for two years. Concurrently, the team also began recording the extensive information contained in the 8,000-plus pages of baptisms,


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Green Bench Monthly - Vol. 7, Issue 1, January 2022 by Green Bench Monthly - Issuu