Volunteering

Opportunities

From January 2025 Shropshire Archives have had to suspend the opportunities they usually provide for volunteers to assist and support their work, as explained here.

https://www.shropshirearchives.org.uk/blog/temporary-service-reduction/

We look forward to the resumption of volunteering at Shropshire Archives in due course. This takes two forms.

In person at Archives

Volunteers of all ages come to work with us at Shropshire Archives in Shrewsbury for different periods of time.  Help with cataloguing, photography, digitising and conserving written material, photographs, maps, books, prints and original artwork is always welcome.  Your previous experiences in life may be helpful but more often you will learn new skills and make a real difference. Once archive material is prepared in these ways, it can be made available to a wider range of users

You can also get involved by supporting events, activities or office administration. History days in our wonderful county are always worthwhile and expand all our horizons. Even just pouring tea, you can talk to visitors and often more importantly, listen to their wealth of local knowledge.

In addition, the Shropshire Family History Society has a volunteer led help desk at the Archives. Currently this is on a Thursday. For more information about volunteering with SFHS visit  Our presence at Shropshire Archives | Shropshire Family History Society

Volunteering Online

TThere have been a number of projects in the last few years whereby volunteers working from home have helped with indexing images of documents that were to be made available online.   One such project was the Salop Fire Office Insurance Records. The Archives holds a series of 12 books listing fire insurance policies taken out with Salop Fire Office between 1780 and 1889, covering property in both Shropshire and Montgomeryshire. These were digitised which resulted in a collection of over 3000 images. The virtual volunteers then indexed each image. The fruits of their labours are now available to all online.

https://www.shropshirearchives.org.uk/collections/getrecord/CCA_XSFO_1_8_1_1_1