Read German church records in Kurrent
German parish registers (Kirchenbücher) recorded baptisms, marriages, and burials in Kurrent script for centuries. Take a photo of a church book entry. FamilyLore transcribes the Kurrent handwriting line by line, translates it into English, and marks doubtful words.
Your first three pages need no account and no card.
A pastor’s letter from our shelf, as read
A dotted underline marks a word FamilyLore was unsure of; [?] is its own note on a doubtful reading.
Johann Kilian to Gotthold Albert Gumlich · 20 May 1858
- Serbin (Low Pinoak Settlement) Bastrop County,
- Texas, den 20sten Mai 1858.
- Geliebter Bruder im Herrn!
- Den Empfang Deines lieben Schreibens vom 16ten März 1858
- bescheinige ich hiermit schon jetzt, weil ich den Andreas Kiesling[?]
- auf den Todtenschein für seine Eltern nicht zu lange warten
- lassen wollte. Das Kreisgericht zu Rothenburg wird hoffentlich
- den Schein anerkennen, da es ja meine Hand kennt. Ich wollte
- den Schein nicht erst von meiner Obrigkeit beglaubigen lassen,
- weil mir's zu umständlich war, deßhalb 20 englische Meilen
- nach Bastrop zu reisen.
Also on the shelf: Tekla Justyna Krzyżanowska’s 1782 baptism entry in Latin · Leo Meter’s Easter letter of 1943, in Sütterlin
How well it reads, measured
| Script | Pages | Characters read correctly | Names, dates and numbers right | Misread words it marked | Last run |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kurrent and Sütterlin15 pages · 3 Nov 2026 | 15 | 83%Characters read correctly | 75%Names, dates and numbers right | 85%Misread words it marked | 3 Nov 2026 |
Measured on Kurrent documents. Church registers and census books set out in multi-column tables are not yet measured. How well FamilyLore reads
Questions
- Can’t ChatGPT do this?
- A general chatbot can read some Kurrent church records, sometimes well, but it usually hands you clean text with no sign of which words it guessed, and its makers publish no figures for this script; FamilyLore marks the words it is unsure of and publishes how often it reads correctly, in the table above.
- Can FamilyLore read tabular church book columns?
- Not reliably yet. FamilyLore reads narrative paragraph entries (such as the 1782 parish baptism on our shelf), but registers arranged in multi-column tables are not yet measured.
- What about Latin entries in older German church books?
- Older church records often contain Latin formulas or whole entries. FamilyLore reads Latin script (as shown on our shelf in the 1782 Krzyżanowska baptism), but Latin documents are not yet measured in our accuracy benchmark.
- What if it reads a word wrong?
- Tap a word to see the other readings FamilyLore weighed, and correct it if you know better. The translation is redone from your correction. Most misread words carry a mark, but not every one, so a name or a date that matters is worth checking against the photo.
- Who sees my pages?
- Only you. A page becomes public only if you share it, and then only to people who have the link. Deleting your account deletes the photos you uploaded.
What FamilyLore doesn’t read well yet
- Registers and vital books arranged in multi-column tables. Tabular layouts are not yet measured.
- Latin entries. FamilyLore reads Latin handwriting, but Latin has no published benchmark row yet.
- Faded or bled-through iron gall ink. Faded handwriting is measured on only a few pages so far.
From photo to text in three steps
Take a photo of the page
Lay the sheet flat, in daylight and without flash. A phone photo of the whole page is enough.
Upload it
“German (Kurrent), 1800 to 1871” is already chosen.
Read it
You get the page as it was written, in modern spelling, and in English. Correct a word you know better yourself.
Rather read it yourself?