Free Translating and Transcription
- Leslie Ryan
- Mar 28
- 3 min read
Have you struggled with old handwritten documents in foreign languages? In all the research I have done over the years, I have gotten pretty good at reading Birth, Marriage, and Death documents in Latin and Spanish, but I think my bilingual abilities have helped me with these documents. But when it comes to non-Latin based languages, I have had to rely on the help of others (which is not always cheap!).
You know I am all about FREE helps for genealogy research, so here is some great info about FREE Translating, Transcription, and even Writing software, courtesy of RootsTech 2025.
One of the most eye-opening lectures I watched in this month's RootsTech (which you can still watch at FamilySearch - link below), was how Artificial Intelligence, or AI has now advanced to make this incredibly easy. FOR FREE. That's right, Free Translating and Transcription of documents you upload to a website. And it just takes a few seconds per page!
I have a lot of friends in the creative arts who despise these programs for stealing their work for training the computers how to read, write, and create images like they do for a living, and I don't blame them. But after watching Andrew Redfern's presentation of "How Can Artificial Intelligence Assist Family Historians?" I am a true firm believer in using parts of these new tools.
Andrew uploaded a handwritten letter in German from the 1841 much like the one seen here, and directed (by typing) into his selected software to translate the document into English. In seconds, the translated product popped up side by side, with a lot of grammatical and spelling errors (bad handwriting!). He then typed in instructions to correct the misspellings and other errors, and to enclose those corrections in brackets. Poof. Seconds later, it was done. He then selected which corrections, etc. were to be kept by editing himself. WHAT A TIME and EYESIGHT SAVER!
You can also use some of these programs to analyze data. Take for example a Baptism records page, or newspaper articles you have saved. You can have the PDF data turned into a table, such as in Excel, and ask it to sort the data by name, age, street address, townland, witnesses, etc. Instead of squinting, turning, brightening, darkening, or sharpening, the software can do a lot of this for you, apparently!
He then showed how you could use different software to write articles about a translated or any uploaded document. Which is NOT something I am interested in, but it may be of help to you. He instructed the program to write an article based on the uploaded he had entered, for a technical magazine, or a historical magazine, or an article for children, with the number of words required, etc. Scary fast!
Redfern includes his recommendations of software programs, most of which are FREE and perhaps already available on your computer from Microsoft, Google, or Apple. I highly recommend you give this lecture a bit of your time, it may change your mind about AI, like it did mine. The link is just below.
March has just blown by for me and a lot of other people it seems! In like a lion and going out like a lion. Here's hoping for a few gentle April showers in your outdoor garden and in your Genealogy Research garden!
If you would like some help with your tree or research, there is always a no obligation free look at your work! Please email me at WhoIComeFromInfo@gmail.com
Thanks for subscribing, thanks for stopping by again!
Leslie Ryan
No compensation is received for any referrals or links herein. No Copyright infringement is intended.
Links and citation info:
Citation for Spanish language document above:
[Letter from Policarzo Martinez to the Laredo Justice of the Peace, August 24, 1841], letter, 1841-08~; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth872007/: accessed March 28, 2025), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting St. Mary's University Louis J. Blume Library.
