IIGS™ Newsletter - February 1999
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IIGS™ Newsletter - February 1999
The first time I looked at an old German church record, I saw only gibberish. Not only was the language unfamiliar, but the old script was undecipherable and most was in Latin--church Latin which can be a bit different from the formal Latin learned in school.Since then, I've taken beginning German lessons, purchased German-English and Latin-English dictionaries and bought a book on how to decipher old German script. While I still scratch my head over these documents, I have gotten better at transcribing them--at least enough to determine whether they are baptismal, marriage or death records. And, at the very least, I recognize my ancestors' names!
Then, I began a search of German records from another church in Germany and, lo and behold, they were in French! So I'm now in search of a good French-English dictionary.
Perhaps the most difficult part of a genealogist's research is transcribing old documents. Fortunately, there are a number of resources available on the Internet. All you have to do is look for them.
Here are some of the resources I've found to help me with German and Latin:
Thirty Lessons in Reading German
http://www.disknet.com/indiana_biolab/gab.htm
Harold Eddleman has put together these lessons for the public and academics who frequently have to be able to read documents in German. Not only can you take these free self-help lessons online, but you can join a discussion group of both German- and English-speaking individuals to help you learn the language.There are links to German and a few dozen other language (except Latin) learning resources at http://www.call.gov/resource/language/language.htm.
I found several good Latin resources, however. And almost any academic/university web page on medieval history will point you to a Latin help page. Here are the ones I found:
Reading Latin Documents
http://www.italgen.com/toolbox/latin.htm
This web page belonging to Family History professor Raymond S. Wright III, Ph.D., at Brigham Young University contains a wonderful explanation on how to read Latin.Ecclesiastical Latin
http://www.csn.net/advent/eathen/09019a.htm
is a page from The Catholic Encyclopedia where you will find the story of the evolution of church Latin with explanation on how it is different from classical Latin.Brian's Latin Resources
http://members.xoom.com/resources/grammar.htmTim's Guide to Parish Register Latin contains a list of Latin words found in church documents.
http://freespace.virgin.net/owston.tj/latin.htmSome Latin Genealogy Terms are found on Frank Arduini's page.
http://yin.interaccess.com/~arduinif/tools/latin.htmLatin Terms and Phrases has a long list put together by John J. Jaso.
http://bigjohn.bmi.net/jjaso/Latin_Terms_and_Phrases.html