Volunteering

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Without volunteers FIBIS wouldn’t exist, as we are run totally by unpaid volunteers. You don’t need to be retired with lots of spare time to volunteer either, as we have many virtual volunteering opportunities. Virtual volunteering can be carried out from the comfort of your own home, or anywhere in the world, at any time of day or night. All virtual volunteering positions are marked with a [V] throughout the volunteering pages of this website.

Whether you can spare just an hour a week or an hour a day, we will have something you can help with. Donating your time and skills in this way helps us make our records available online and thereby helps others find long lost family or missing ancestors on our website.

Volunteering opportunities​

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Research Team

Our research team help FIBIS to provide personal research services at the India Office Records, held at the British Library and certain other London Archives, to those who are unable to access the records due to distance or disability.

Are you able to assist members who cannot access records in the British Library (or The National Archives) due to distance or disability? Reasonable expenses, such as travelling, will be covered. Even the offer of simple lookups would be appreciated and the research co-ordinator would be pleased to hear from you. Please contact: [email protected]

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Website Team

The website team helps in uploading datasets, documents, records and images to the FIBIS website, articles to the FIBIS wiki and filming, recording and editing talks and events for the FIBIS website and the FIBIS YouTube channel.

The website team carries out a wide and varying range of duties:

[V]= Virtual Volunteering position

If you are interested in volunteering to help the website team please email Valmay Young at [email protected]

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Transcription Team

Our large and ever-growing FIBIS database website owes a huge debt to the many volunteers who have given up their free time to transcribe documents into a suitable format. All you need is a computer and internet connection.

If you have not already done so, go to “Database“, then “Browse records”, to see just how much has been achieved.

Click here to find out more