Read an old German letter
For centuries German was handwritten in Kurrent, and from 1915 also in Sütterlin, its rounder school version, until schools dropped both in 1941. Take a photo of the page. FamilyLore gives you the German text line by line, an English translation, and a mark on each word it was unsure of.
Your first three pages need no account and no card.
A letter from our shelf, as FamilyLore read it
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: Leo Meter’s Easter letter of 1943, in Sütterlin · Karl and Käthe Kollwitz’s field-post letter of 1914, in Kurrent
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 letters whose holders published a transcription made by hand, read the same way your page is. The figures rest on a few pages so far and move as pages are added. How well FamilyLore reads
Questions
- Can’t ChatGPT do this?
- A general chatbot can read some Kurrent, 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.
- 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.
- Is my letter Kurrent or Sütterlin?
- Kurrent is the older hand: pointed, and leaning steeply to the right. Sütterlin, taught from 1915, is rounder and upright. FamilyLore reads both under the same choice, so you don’t need to know which you have.
- 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 registers and census lists set out in columns. They aren’t measured yet, so we can’t tell you how well it reads them.
- Faded pages, and letters that run across two pages. You can upload them, but faded pages are measured on only a few pages so far.
- Entries written in Latin, which many older church books use. FamilyLore doesn’t take Latin documents yet.
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)” is already chosen. If you know roughly when it was written, pick the era.
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?