The Naval Documents of the American Revolution (NDAR) was represented at the 47th Annual Meeting of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic (SHEAR), held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from 16–19 July 2026. The annual conference brings together historians, archivists, documentary editors, and digital humanists to share new research and discuss the evolving study of early America.

Christopher Minty, Managing Editor of NDAR and Project Director at the Center for Digital Editing (CDE), University of Virginia, participated in the roundtable, "Accessing and Editing Early America, 1776–2026: Whose Sources, Whose Stories?" The session was moderated by Jennifer Stertzer, Director of the Center for Digital Editing, and featured representatives from several leading digital humanities and editing projects, including the Papers of George Washington, the Revolutionary City, MosaicNC, and SlaveVoyages.

Minty discussed the continuing evolution of NDAR as a digital scholarly edition, focusing on the project's use of rich metadata, linked data, and digital infrastructure to improve discovery, interpretation, and access to Revolutionary-era naval sources. He also highlighted collaborative initiatives—including work with the Prize Papers Project—and explored how documentary editing is creating new opportunities for scholarship, teaching, and public engagement.

The roundtable considered how documentary editions have changed over the past 250 years, how editorial practices continue to evolve, and how digital technologies are reshaping the ways researchers and the public discover, interpret, and use historical sources. Together, the participants emphasized that documentary editing remains central to preserving, contextualizing, and expanding access to the documentary record of early America.

Participation in SHEAR reflects NDAR's ongoing commitment to advancing documentary editing and digital scholarship while contributing to national conversations about the future of historical research and public access to primary sources.