Read your Germans-from-Russia documents

One letter in each hand, from our shelf

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

1. 6auf den Todtenschein für seine Eltern nicht zu lange warten
2. 7lassen wollte. Das Kreisgericht zu Rothenburg wird hoffentlich
3. 8den Schein anerkennen, da es ja meine Hand kennt. Ich wollte
4. 9den Schein nicht erst von meiner Obrigkeit beglaubigen lassen,
5. 10weil mir's zu umständlich war, deßhalb 20 englische Meilen
6. 11nach Bastrop zu reisen.
7. 12Für Deine eingesandten Nachrichten aus Weigersdorf, Uhyst[?]

See the whole reading and its translation →

Matvei Lapatin to Grigorii Shelikhov · 24 Oct 1792

1. 5Милостивый Гдрь;
2. 6Григорьи[?] Ивановичь;
3. 7Имелъ честь получить отвас пи
4. 8Смо отъ числа сего мца чрезъ игнатья
5. 9петровича котелникова прикоторомъ
6. 10итоварной регистръ сценою Суммою на
7. 117256[?] р.[?] изначущимися понакладной фанту[?]

See the whole reading and its translation →

Also on the shelf: Leo Meter’s Easter letter of 1943, in Sütterlin · A Russian letter of 1910, in the spelling used before 1918

How well it reads, measured

Measured on letters whose holders published a transcription made by hand, read the same way your page is. Both rows rest on a few pages so far, the Russian one on very few, and they move as pages are added. How well FamilyLore reads →

Questions

Can’t ChatGPT do this?

A general chatbot can read some Kurrent and old Russian handwriting, sometimes well, but it usually hands you clean text with no sign of which words it guessed, and its makers publish no figures for these scripts; FamilyLore marks the words it is unsure of and publishes how often it reads correctly, in the table above.

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.

My family’s papers mix German and Russian. Which do I choose?

Choose by the page: German for a page written in German, Russian for a page written in Russian. A page that mixes both, such as a Russian form with German names written in, goes under the language most of it is in.

Can it find my family’s village or my ancestors?

No. FamilyLore reads the pages you already have. For villages and family lines, many families compare notes through the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia (AHSGR), with its village coordinators, and the Germans from Russia Heritage Society (GRHS). FamilyLore has no connection with either.

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

• Church books, revision lists and other registers set out in columns. They aren’t measured yet, so we can’t tell you how well it reads them.
• Faded pages (measured on only a few pages so far), and letters that run across two pages.
• The benchmark has few Russian pages so far. Until it has more, check every marked word, and any name or date that matters, against the photo.
• Documents in Latin or Polish. FamilyLore doesn’t take them yet.

From photo to text in three steps

1. 1

   Take a photo of the page

   Lay the sheet flat, in daylight and without flash. A phone photo of the whole page is enough.

2. 2

   Upload it

   “German (Kurrent)” is already chosen. If you know roughly when it was written, pick the era.

3. 3

   Read it

   You get the page as it was written, in modern spelling, and in English. Correct a word you know better yourself.