At the end of 2024 the Moravian Lives map interface and transcription desk that made up the core of the original Moravian Lives project had to be sunsetted. This difficult decision was made because of security vulnerabilities and is intended to protect the valuable work that has been done over the last ten years by many researchers and students around the world. What you find on this static blog site is a collection of the transcriptions that have been completed both on the original transcription desk and also by our team on the Transkribus platform. Both sets of files have been either scraped from the mediawiki behind the original Moravian Lives transcription desk or from the .xml files that were the output from Transkribus. Regardless of the method of transcription, whether human or AI aided, all texts have been thoroughly checked and edited by our human team.

We are working to reboot the project using Leaf-Writer Commons. This platform allows researchers to produce a sophisticated and versatile digital edition based on current best practice. We create linked entities on Leaf-Writer that are based on both the ontologies and schema that have been developed over the last ten years with the aim of producing a digital edition of memoirs from the UK, USA, and Germany. In the interim, the memoirs on this site can be searched using the WordPress search function and also are categorized according to the Choir to which the individual author belonged at the time of death. There can also be downloaded as a pdf. They present a fascinating view of lived lives of faith in eighteenth century England. The site will be expanded to include more of the memoirs from the Moravian Archives in Bethlehem, PA as they become available.

Moravian Lives is an international collaboration between Bucknell University, Gothenburg University, and the Moravian Archives, Bethlehem, PA. Materials on this site are primarily from the Fulneck Archives, Fulneck Yorkshire and Moravian Church House, Muswell Hill, London.