Transkribus at the municipal archive of the city of Bautzen

The municipal archive of the city of Bautzen holds an extensive record of official administration from the 13th century to the present day. Council minutes are part of the main archive collections of the city archive and were almost completely digitized in 2019/2020. They can be accessed online via the Findbuch.net-platform . However, the statistics of the page views show that they are not too much in use yet. This is certainly also due to the fact, that they are partly difficult to read. With the help of Transkribus and automated text recognition the accessibility of these documents is now to be improved. Furthermore, our web-based read&search-application will be used to make the documents searchable for special words and phrases and this way even more useful for scholars and the interested public.

While the first documents date back to the 13th century, the archive collections also contain extensive series of official records (from the 16th or 17th century). In addition to the court and tax books, the council minutes are particularly noteworthy among the series of official records. In the minutes, which are complete between 1623 and 1832, all decisions of the city council are compactly documented. In particular, they deal with the composition of the council, political decisions, building measures, health and social welfare measures and educational, sales and inheritance matters.  

With Transkribus and read&search, we are hoping to contribute to improving the accessibility of the material significantly, as those are vital sources for the history of the city of Bautzen and the surrounding region. This is the link to the website of the Bautzen archive where you can find out more: https://www.archivverbund-bautzen.de/

Update

As of 2023, it has become possible to access all 256 volumes of the minutes of the Bautzen City Council online. View and search the documents yourself in the online city archive of Bautzen or visit the city´s website for more information on the project.

Source: https://www.archivverbund-bautzen.de/