Climbing your family tree can be difficult if you
don't speak the language of your ancestor’s home country.
However, you don't have to hire a professional genealogist who can surmount the language barrier,
just yet. In today's video, I will share with you a few things that you will want to try first.
Howdy! My name is Devon Noel Lee, and I want to help you enjoy the
journey of climbing your family tree and connecting to the past. To do that,
we have to talk about what do you do when you don't speak your ancestors' native language.
As genealogists, we love quick reference guides. They give us targeted tips and
information without forcing us to dig through unrelated details to find what we need.
Thankfully, FamilySearch has a wealth of guides to help us decipher foreign
languages. The two most important are: Word Lists and Extraction Guides.
FamilySearch has a Wiki page for genealogists to access records and training tips for nearly
every country. One great feature on almost every country-level Wiki Page is word lists.
For Mexico, you can click on this Word List and find categorized listed for dates and keywords.
You can also view alphabetical lists of words you’ll typically encounter in your research,
including those listed under the letter C - gentleman, peasant, chapel, and house.
In 1981, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints produced some manuals
to help with the program that preceded our modern-day indexing program. Many of these
manuals are accessible for free in the Digital Books collection. For example,
search for "Extraction Guide" and the country or language you're trying to research.
If you can't view the extraction guide online, check out the FamilySearch wiki.
For the Spanish Record’s guide, I couldn't access it in the Book Collection. However,
it was available from the Mexico Genealogy wiki page.
Within the guides, you will find tips, and examples, and practice exercises to
understand some of the core records you will find in genealogy research.
Thanks to the specific examples and typical keywords in these documents,
I have become very proficient at reading Spanish Catholic Church baptismal records.
When I work with historical records, I create templates containing frequently used jargon.
That way, I don't necessarily have to keep transcribing words
that appear repeatedly in baptismal records.
You can do the same for various record types for your research language. First,
translate several documents into your favorite text-writing program. (Mine is Google Docs).
Use the documents from the research area and the tips from the extract guides and word lists.
When you have a general idea of the most common language, save this file. Add the
word 'template' to the file name as a reminder not to overwrite this file.
Next, you can translate the transcription. So now,
you have both the original language and your translation in the same template.
From this point on, you can open the template and modify it when you
need to translate something similar in the future.
As with any transcription project, you should do a fast read and type what you see on a document. Do
not worry about translating the information yet. Just, type what you see.
Use brackets for words for which you're uncertain. You can also use question marks or asterisks.
For more tips on this process, check out this post which will be linked in the description box.
Once you’ve finished the fast transcriptions, return to the words in brackets.
Leverage handwriting helps found on the word list and extraction guides.
In this case, I've learned that sometimes priests used abbreviations for names had
superscript letters like a superscript 'co' or 'o' in this system. Therefore,
this entry is Fran.co and Ant.o, which is an abbreviation for Francisco Antonio.
Next, you can compare words in brackets to other words on the page to puzzle them out.
In this case, I saw another trouble spot that looked very similar to the Ant.o. Now,
I have resolved some other words in brackets.
But we still might be struggling with words. What then?
There is a great website called WordMine.info that can help you
search for foreign words using some of the letters you have figured out.
First, choose the language that you're researching. I'll select Spanish.
Then select the search type. I will use "words starting with."
Then, type in the word or a part of a word you are trying to resolve. In this case,
those five letters right there.
Click search.
You'll see a list of words in Spanish that begin with "oblig."
As you scroll through, you may see a definition. In this case,
OBLIGACIÓN is an obligation. In reference to baptism,
an obligation with an abbreviation that looks like this [oblig.o] makes so much sense.
WordMine also allows you to search for words in different ways.
You can add more letters to simplify the word and search again.
Use the asterisks for the spot where you're uncertain.
Or change strategy, such as words beginning with "echo."
After using WordMine.info, return to your entry and add your corrections.
Next, you can use Google Translate to attempt to convert your transcriptions into your
native language. Now be careful. Google Translate is not perfect,
but you can get close to the meaning of the words.
Other Google tools can help you with translating your transcription. My colleague, Katherine,
has a great video with even more tips. The video, of course, is linked in the show notes.
While many of her tips benefit those attempting to read German, you can
extrapolate many of her tools and techniques for the languages you’re trying to read.
I hope you now see the many resources are available to
help you overcome the language barrier in genealogy research.
Of course, you may eventually run into some trouble spots, and you will need to get help.
In my show notes, linked in the description box,
you will find several ways to find free or paid assistance for things you can not figure out.
If you have any further genealogy translation tips,
please share them in the comments section. I welcome all ideas.
If you liked that video, please remember to like,
subscribe, share, and leave me. If you really really liked it,
then check out the video description for our FHF Channel membership and website for
even more genealogy research training. And as always, here's the next video you should watch.