Volunteer Program

Want to help the Maryland State Archives? We need you!

We need enthusiastic volunteers who are interested in donating their time and talents! We are looking for individuals to assist us in caring for and making our collections more accessible. We welcome anyone who is eager to lend a hand from high school students to senior citizens, and we have many diverse opportunities available to meet varied time, interest and experience levels. Professional archivists will provide all the necessary training, equipment and tools, if you provide the hours and the energy. We can work with individuals seeking academic credit, field work, professional experience or community service hours, as well. We even have assignments that can be done remotely from the comfort of your own home.

Interested? Please check out the list of potential volunteer assignments below with more detailed information. Then, click on How to Volunteer for instructions on how to apply to the program. If you have additional questions? Please contact jen.abbott@maryland.gov.

Thank you so much for your consideration! We appreciate any time you can share with us!

Brewer Hill Cemetery Project

The Maryland State Archives and the Brewer Hill Cemetery Association are collaborating on a project to identify those interred at the cemetery in unmarked graves. The BHCA plans to erect a memorial wall commemorating the names of these individuals. The first phase of this project has been completed already.
Thank you to all who helped with the first phase!

For the second phase of this project, we are asking for volunteers to come in person to the Archives to research those interred at the cemetery between 1924-1950. We will train volunteers how to do this research. If interested in assisting or in need of additional information, please contact Corey Lewis at msabrewerhillcemetery@gmail.com.

Probate Record Volunteer
The Maryland State Archives is participating in a joint project with the Comptroller of the Treasury, the Registers of Wills, and FamilySearch to have the state's probate records from 1634 to 1940 indexed, scanned, and made available online. This is an on-site project with work available Monday through Friday within the hours of 8:30-4:30, and has flexible scheduling. Volunteers can perform one or both of the following jobs:

    Processing
    • Removing staples and paperclips
    • Unfolding and flattening documents
    • Creating cover sheets for each record with identifying information found by reading the documents
    • Labeling folders

    Indexing
    • Confirming the information on cover sheets by reading the documents
    • Typing information from the cover sheet into a spreadsheet

Benefits for volunteers include purchasing publications and merchandise at staff discounts, receiving the newsletter email, free regular copies of scanned records from our search room computers, invitations to internal staff professional development events, and using the search room computers and reference library on Mondays when it is closed to the public. (Please note, however, that original records are not available on Monday.)

To volunteer at the Archives please download and complete the volunteer application and return it to the Archives at jen.abbott@maryland.gov or by mail to:

    Jennifer Abbott
    Maryland State Archives
    350 Rowe Blvd.
    Annapolis, MD 21401

In addition to your application, please include an email or note that indicates what opportunities listed above that you are most interested in and what your proposed schedule would be (what specific days/hours you would like to volunteer). If you cannot begin immediately, please also indicate a desired start date, for example if you are are student who is looking to volunteer during a certain semester. If you have any questions, please contact: jen.abbott@maryland.gov.

Download Volunteer Application: (PDF Format)    (Word Format)

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