War Diaries Talk

New, working on 93rd Feild Ambulance

  • rmz4160 by rmz4160

    Over the past few days I have begun classifying on the 93rd Field Ambulance. Starting out was difficult to decipher the handwriting of the author, and understand what was going on. As time progressed, I have gotten more accustomed to the writing. It has also helped that all the pages have been consecutive to follow what is going on. But the past few pages there have been several skipped pages in between, which has made it much more difficult. The author transcribes all his orders into the journal, so when pages are skipped, it makes it much more difficult to figure out what is going on. Kind of like ripping out pages in a book your trying to read, and understand whats going on with the information you didn't get. Even if the pages no longer need classifying, it would make it much more helpful to be able to reference all pages, I have currently classified 33 pages of the 93rd Field Ambulance, and don't even know the authors name,

    Posted

  • cyngast by cyngast moderator

    I understand exactly what you mean. Unless I can start a diary at the beginning, or at least at the beginning of whatever section we have at the moment, those first few pages can be a mystery as you try to sort out who is who and where the unit is. All you can do is to tag the pages as best you can with the information you find on each page.

    I also wish we were able to see the pages that may be skipped as other taggers finish them up. We can't do that though. We can only see the page once, unless a Comment is made or you look at it again in your profile. (Your profile, accessed through the profile button on the home page or above a diary page, holds the ten pages you have most recently tagged. This is handy when a sentence continues onto a second page and you've forgotten what the first part says!) And we can only see pages open for tagging. This has to do in part with copyright restrictions imposed by the National Archives so we really can't make any corrections for this issue.

    As a bit of help with the field ambulance diary, most of the field ambulance diaries were written by the commanding officer of that unit. He was often a major. These diaries tend to be written in the first person, so the author's name is seldom seen unless he signs the diary at the end of a month.

    Sorry we can't be any more helpful. I hope you'll keep working with us in spite of our shortcomings. If the 93rd Field Ambulance is too frustrating, feel free to move to another diary. There's no need to stick with the same one to the end. It will eventually be tagged by someone.

    Posted