Digitize Louisiana's Colonial Documents

FAIN: PW-51494-13

Louisiana Museum Foundation (New Orleans, LA 70176-2441)
Greg Lambousy (Project Director: July 2012 to July 2015)
Dawn Deano Hammatt (Project Director: July 2015 to September 2016)
Sarah-Elizabeth Gundlach (Project Director: September 2016 to October 2017)

Digitizing and creating free online access and English-language finding aids for 70,000 judicial and notarial records of the New Orleans French Superior Council (1714-1769) and Spanish Cabildo (1769-1803) that document the history and culture of the city's inhabitants during the colonial era.

With this request, and on behalf of the Louisiana State Museum (LSM), the Louisiana Museum Foundation seeks $336,750 to enable the Museum to digitize and e-publish the French Superior Council (1714-1769) and Spanish Judicial records (1769-1803), which are the oldest non-sacramental records in the Lower Mississippi Valley, for free access by anyone with a web-enabled device. Designed to address access and preservation issues, the project will digitize and e-publish high-resolution scans of the records, extant paper-based finding aids and synoptic translations on LSM’s and other websites, and will create a searchable database of the records. Education and outreach programming will publicize the project and promote use of the records by researchers, genealogists, educators and the general public.