A few weeks ago, one of my husband’s cousins sent us a couple of packages from California. When we opened them, it was like stepping into genealogy Christmas! Old pictures, records, letters, genealogy charts, plat maps – you name it. We had a lot of fun sorting through all this old family history. Among the contents of the packages were old letters from family and friends in Germany. They were, of course, written in – you guessed it – German with old German handwriting. Aaargh! Letters are a great resource for old family stories, but not if you can’t read them. I guess I should have taken that German class in high school.
You’ll understand our predicament if you have any experience attempting to read old handwriting in languages you don’t understand. If the letters were typed or even written in print, we could translate the writing using Google. But there is no way a computer can latch on to the subtle differences in handwritten script. So, find someone who can read old German handwriting, right?
Not so easy. 1. We don’t live in Germany. 2. While many people in our area have German heritage, those who can actually read the old German handwriting are now few in number. Plus, not everyone won those penmanship awards in primary school. Sometimes the penmanship is plain sloppy.
What to do?
For kicks, I thought “Well, why not try to figure out the German words letter by letter, then type them into Google?” I started with a letter that my husband’s great-grandfather received from his brother in 1934. Both lived in the United States, but they regularly wrote to each other in German. The brother’s handwriting was large and this letter was shorter than some of the others, so I thought it might be a good one to try.
First, my tools. I made a clean copy of the letter (never use the original when you’re translating so you don’t damage it), printed a copy of the German Handwriting guide from FamilySearch, and grabbed a notebook and a pencil. Sitting in my comfy chair, I dug in, writing down each letter as best as I could tell by comparing the writing in the letter with the guide.
Here’s the thing. So many of these letters are similar and written in such a way that it’s hard to tell them apart. After an hour and a half of frustration and eye strain, I took the paragraph I had and typed it into Google. How did I do? Well… I got about 3 words right. The rest were gibberish. And now I have this chronic kink in my neck!
Learning German
I was about to put the whole thing away when I remembered my attempts to learn some German a couple of years before. We went on a trip to Europe and spent a few days in Germany. At the time I wanted to know enough of the language to be able to say: ”yes”, “no”, “thank you” and “where’s the bathroom”. I used the Duolingo app on my cellphone to learn the basics and, believe it or not, I actually realized I remembered a few words. I looked at the letter again and realized that the first word was not “Jeh” (who was a Zoroastrian demoness), but “Ich”, which means I. Of course! This is the way many, many letters start.
I realized at that point that my translation efforts might be a little more successful if I knew more German; at least enough to recognize the more common words like “ich”. I opened my Duolingo app and dove back into learning. I’m now studying easy lessons almost every day. I’m pretty good at “Der Junge und die Frau” and “Brot und Wasser”, but I’m guessing they wrote about more than “the boy and the girl” and “bread and water.” Progress is progress!
Tschüss!
