This prolonged and painstaking project involved the photographing of Somerset tithe apportionment documents, parish by parish and their transfer on to CD’s so that they could be worked on at home, either in the UK or abroad. Some members of the Friends worked with the actual documents in the Somerset Heritage Centre, others with digital copies or paper photocopies. The completed tithe apportionment transcriptions were co-ordinated by a designated archivist and are stored by the South West Heritage Trust, these are now available for public reference.

The Dickinson collection, a substantial hoard of documents covering several centuries of the history of a merchant family originally from Bristol finally came into the full possession of the Somerset Archives and Local Studies Service in 2011. The collection was conserved, indexed and catalogued by professional archivist staff and volunteers from the Friends of Somerset Archives.  The project was completed in 2015; the Dickinson papers are now available for public reference.

The Friends of Somerset Archives are pleased to be a partner in the South West Heritage Trust led project to digitise and transcribe parish land tax returns.  The land tax annual returns held in the archives provide details of owners, occupiers and property descriptions for the period c.1766 to 1833.  The original documents held by the Somerset Heritage Centre will be carefully scanned, transcribed, peer reviewed and checked so that the digitised records can be made available for public reference.  The land tax project pilot phase started on 13 September 2018 and the project is expected to run between 2018 and 2022 (end date subject to change due to COVID-19).  If you are interested in helping with this project either at the Heritage Centre (in Taunton) or at home by working from scanned records please contact Kate Parr [ kate.parr@swheritage.org.uk ] at the Heritage Centre or any committee member of the Friends of Somerset Archives.

Project update, with SWHT index link, was provided in Snippets No.60 (March 2022), a further update has been provided in Snippets No.61 (June 2022).