Get involved – Bristol volunteer opportunities
Tell us your story
Do you have ancestors from other countries who settled in Bristol? Maybe you have documents or pictures relating to them? Or perhaps you have experience of a family business established by immigrants? If so, we’d love to hear from you.
Lend us your expertise
Are you experienced in working with historical sources, or using the web as a research tool?
We’re looking for volunteers to help transcribe documents at the Bristol Record Office and Central Library, and carry out online searches for primary sources and archival catalogues.
To tell us your story, please contact us.
Volunteer project details
Group One: Researching Archive Material:
- Reading through newspapers and wills
- Reading through police and home office records
- Researching apprenticeships and other early modern records
- Working on census records
- Doing bibliographic searches
- Looking through trade union material at UNISON
Group Two: Taking photographs and doing picture research
Group Three: Volunteers are writing their own histories/ accessing those of others from each of the main 20th Century immigrant communities in Bristol (Polish, African-Caribbean, Somali, and West African). So far six Somalis, one Pole and one African-Caribbean are participating.
Group 4: Agroup will be undertaking reminiscence work
Training activity: Bristol is informally providing interviewing techniques and linking up with the Oral History Society’s Training session in London. Training is currently identified as:
- Oral History
- Photography
- Reading wills and related documents
- Web management
