Deciphering German records if you can’t speak the language can be a challenge, to say the least. While I am always here if you’d like the help of a professional, sometimes it’s nice to have quick and easy online resources you can turn to in a pinch. Below, find four popular online translation resources, and my thoughts on each:

1. Google Translate

Google Translate is perhaps the most well-known online translation tool. While Google Translate can work well for individual words (such as Bruder for brother) or very short phrases, you do need to be cautious when using it for anything else. In Six Reasons Why a Human is Better Than Google Translate for Genealogy Documents, I outline the shortcomings of this tool for genealogy. For the purposes of this article, however, the two most important factors working against this tool are:

• Genealogy documents contain many old-fashioned words and idioms that this machine translation doesn’t recognize.
• Google Translate can’t always tell the meaning of the word for the context that pertains to your specific document. 

Take the English word “run”. “Run” can mean jog quickly (She runs in the park), manage (She runs a business), a tear (a run in your stockings), and so on. How is Google to know exactly what definition your document requires?

That being said, Google Translate is continuing to improve, so feel free to use this tool – just try to stick to individual words or phrases to give the site less room for error. And if you can, verify the definition provided with a second source.

In the example above, I was trying to figure out what the Latin phrase “natus et renatus est” meant in my German document. Google, for some reason, came up with “buttocks and revival”. Not sure where that came from – the phrase means “born and baptized”. So always take Google’s translations with a grain of salt!

2. Deepl 

Deepl.com is a relatively new translation tool, and I like it better than Google Translate. While it does have similar shortcomings to Google Translate in terms of genealogy documents, I find it to be more accurate overall.  It’s actually helpful to use both together – copy and paste your phrase into Google Translate, and then copy and paste it into Deepl. Does one give you a better translation than the other?

If you are dealing with idioms, Deepl is definitely better than Google Translate. While Google Translate still tends to translate idioms word for word, providing you with a literal translation (cats and dogs are actually falling out of the sky, instead of it’s raining hard), Deepl will often provide you with the actual meaning of the idiomatic phrase.  

Below, I typed the German idiom “Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof” (I don’t understand anything at all) into both tools. Google translated the phrase literally, giving you the result “I only understand train station.” This would make no sense to you as an English speaker, and could completely change what you think your ancestor’s document means. Deepl, however, recognized that the phrase was an idiom, translating it as “It’s as clear as mud” and providing you with an alternative below that “It’s all Greek to me.” One point for Deepl!

3. Linguee.com

If you have a word or short phrase and want to be more certain of an accurate translation, then Linguee is the site for you. This tool shows you your German word or phrase translated into English by actual translators instead of machines. Upon clicking search, the site provides you with the word’s definition, as well as various sample sentences that include your word/phrase in a specific context (in both German and English). Scroll through the examples, and find which definition of the word best matches the context of your document. 

Usually, the translation that occurs the most on the right side is the accurate translation, but make sure that it makes sense within the context of your own document. 

4. Word Reference 

Word Reference is a great online dictionary that often provides sentence examples for the word in question. Again, this helps you to understand if your word is being translated correctly in context. Notice how it provides various meanings and examples for the word “married” below. 

In conclusion, we are lucky we live in an age where there are so many translation tools available on the Internet. However, it’s important to understand how each tool works, as this will allow you to make sure you are translating your German words as accurately as possible. 

Finally, if you’d like a bit of a boost with the German language, see German Language Insight for Genealogists. And if you do choose to go with a translator, see 5 Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your Genealogy Translation.

Happy translating!

Discovering ancestral towns is a thrilling part of any genealogist’s research. But if you don’t speak the language, how are you supposed to know if a word is the name of a town or simply another foreign term? In the table below, find all the town-related words you’ll need to know when working with your ancestors’ German records – as well as what these words may look like in the old German handwriting! 

The table starts out with prepositions that may come before the name of a town (all with slight variations in meaning, but which all can be translated with “from” if appearing before a town), followed by many words meaning “here” (many of which are old-fashioned), and concluding with some general town vocabulary that’s important for any German genealogist’s knowledge base. For more information on discovering your ancestor’s hometown, see 5 Tips for Deciphering Town Names on German Records. Best of luck!

Eight Reasons You Should Be Using

Newspapers.com For Your Genealogy Research

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My mom is one of ten children. Yes, you read that right. Ten children – seven girls and three boys. And the even crazier thing is that my mom’s grandmother, Florence Wolken, was also one of ten children – seven girls and three boys. 

And it was this family – all the (hundreds of!) descendants of my great-grandmother Florence Wolken and her nine siblings – who gathered together for a family reunion this past October. While I know a lot about my Mueller family history (Florence married a man named Frederick Mueller), I did not know anything about the Wolken family themselves. So the genealogist inside me was very excited to learn all the names, dates, and towns these new family members had to offer.

The day after the reunion, armed with this new information, I set off to do a bit of googling. As I typed in my ancestors’ names, one site kept coming up in the results – Newspapers.com. I had of course heard of the site before, but had never used it. Extremely curious based on those little newspaper blurbs I kept seeing, I quickly signed up and was amazed at what I found. 

So what can you find using Newspapers.com in your search for your ancestors? So much. With over 15,600 digitized newspapers from the 1700s to the 2000s, there is an incredible amount of information to discover: 

1. birth, marriage, and death dates related to your ancestor

In the past, our ancestors would often send announcements of major life events into newspapers – much like we still do with obituaries today. That means that there is a wealth of information on important dates in your ancestor’s life just waiting to be found.

Once I signed up for Newspapers.com, I typed one of my ancestor’s names – Frank Wolken, Florence’s father – into the search box, and was amazed at all the life events that showed up. One such event was his 1897 marriage to his wife Helen, shown below. I had known that his wife’s name was Helen, but didn’t know her maiden name – making this article one of my first great finds!

The above February 24, 1897 article tells us the date of Frank’s marriage to Helen Klodt. It also provides us with a number of names, a church location that would help us with further research, and more! 

The obituaries available on the site are also interesting. In this December 9, 1918 issue of the St. Louis Post Dispatch, I can see that my ancestor Frank Wolken died of influenza – which no one in my family today actually knew. It also provides the fascinating information that many of the rest of the family members had influenza as well. This gave me more of a sense of what the family was going through at the time, as well as a personal connection to the 1918 flu epidemic, which I never knew I had!

Notice how Frank’s name is spelled incorrectly in the title – it is definitely worth searching a few variations of your ancestor’s name to see if different articles appear.

2. your ancestor’s actual address

How amazing to be able to find the actual house where your ancestor lived! In the wedding announcement under Point #1, Frank and Helen’s address was also listed, making it even more of a great find. Using Newspapers.com, I also found an address for Florence Wolken (Frank and Helen’s future daughter, my great-grandmother) and Fred Mueller (my great-grandfather) in the below notice of their marriage license from October 17, 1928. 

I think a visit to their old house might be in order!

3. Your Ancestor’s siblings’ names

All good genealogists know the important of the FAN(S) Club – researching your ancestor’s friends, associates, neighbors, and of course, siblings, to see if you can go further back in time via one of those routes. With Newspapers.com, you may find these siblings’ names listed in obituaries, wedding announcements, social notices, and more. 

This December 9, 1918 obituary for my ancestor Frank Wolken provided me with the names of all of my ancestor’s – Florence Wolken’s – siblings – as well as her mother’s maiden name. It also lists the address where the family lived, and where my ancestor is buried – another great newspaper find!

4. Your ancestor’s burial plot location

As you can see above, the 1918 obituary also gives us the cemetery where Frank Wolken was buried. The below 1968 obituary for Helen Klodt, Frank’s wife, does as well:

This obituary also gives us many of the Wolken children’s married names – allowing me to take another new step in my research and look for present-day family members and cousins! This also explained a lot of those names in my Ancestry DNA matches – names I saw under relations but didn’t know who they were or why we were related. 

5. The names of the previous generation

Many newspaper articles will list a woman’s maiden name, which allows you to go back one more generation than you had before. In the below March 21, 1950 obituary for Florence Wolken Mueller’s grandmother Anna, Anna’s maiden name is listed – allowing me to start researching an entirely new family line!

6. your ancestor’s school information

Some newspaper articles may also list where your ancestor went to school, which allows you to then contact the school and ask for records. In the below August 12, 1937 engagement announcement, we find out the school history of Virginia Wolken, Florence’s sister. 

7. fascinating stories related to your ancestor 

We can of course use FamilySearch and Ancestry to find wonderful records and facts about our ancestors, but Newspapers.com allows us to fill in the fascinating details of their lives – various events that allow us to see the life in between the year they were born and the year they died. 

In the above December 1918 article, we learn that Frank Wolken Jr.’s car (or machine!) was stolen when he was in downtown St. Louis filing his father’s will. Between the obituary we found and this, we learn that this must have been a very hard month for the Wolken family – first, they all get influenza, then their father dies, and then their car is stolen. This gives us a lot more context than simply a death date on a record!

But it wasn’t all sad. The below 1922 article tells me that my great-great-grandmother and great-grandmother took a trip to Yellowstone in July of that year. I always thought that my family stayed put in St. Louis, so that was interesting for me to see as well. 

Finally, in this 1896 article, I learned that Frank Wolken’s father, Gerhard Wolken, had to deal with neighbors complaining about his dairy business. It has long been in our family’s oral history that the Wolkens owned a major dairy company in St. Louis, so this was fascinating for me to see proof of (not that I didn’t believe my family, of course, but it’s nice to see documentation).

8. Chuckle at the old-fashioned ads and stories. 

In addition to looking at your own ancestors’ stories, it’s also extremely amusing (and addicting!) to scroll through the old newspapers themselves and see what else was going on or deemed worthy of reporting in those years. See a few of my favorite examples below:

1921 Article

1896 Fashion

Advertising arsenic for women’s faces!

So there you have it! Eight wonderful reasons to sign up for Newspapers.com. It is my new favorite way to research my ancestors – and have a lot of fun along the way (to be honest, I often find myself getting side-tracked and looking up article after article when I should be working – just ask my family about all the stories they’ve been receiving via text)! 

A small portion of the Wolken descendants at the October family reunion! Can you find me hidden on the left, third row from the back, next to the lady in the orange vest?

When analyzing  your ancestors’ documents, you are likely looking for two things – events and dates. Being able to read these dates, therefore, is of the utmost importance for your genealogy research. In an ideal world, all you would need to do would be to memorize the 12 German words for the months (German: Monate) of the year. and you’d be good to go. But because we are talking about documents of the past, there were often multiple words used for the same month, depending on the time, the region, the scribe, etc. So it’s important to be familiar with all these variations. But no worries – I’ve got you covered!

Two different words for January – Jänner and Januar 

In the table below, I’ve summarized for you the different possibilities of German words you may run into for each month. The “regular” – and most common – translation of the month in German is first, and this word is provided for you in the old handwriting as well. The words that follow are the less common – but no less important – variations, as sometimes this will be the only month word you find in your ancestor’s record.

You’ll notice that September – December are denoted 7, 8, 9, and 10ber/bris (you may also see December written as Xbris). This numbering of the months dates back to the time of the Romans, when the calendar began in March, making September the 7th month of the year. So don’t get confused and think 7bris means July!  Most of the other month words are descriptions – March as “Wind Month” and October as “Wine Month” for example – and are rather interesting in their translations. So if you run into one of these less common words, just refer to this table, and you should be good to go. Happy transcribing!

The Ultimate List of Months in German Genealogy