Letters, deeds, family records, contracts, diaries, postcards, building documents and plans, or your great-grandmother’s cookbook: reading old handwriting isn’t always easy these days. There are many reasons for this – but the solution is quite simple: transcription.
If you have old documents that you are unable to read, I can produce a transcription for you that is accurate down to the word, line and page. My particular strength lies in deciphering historical German handwritings from the 15th to the 20th century, such as Kurrent, Kanzleischrift and Sütterlin. Translations into English are also available.
What I need for a transcription
A good transcription requires a good source document. High-resolution copies – ideally scans in PDF or JPG format – provide the best basis for the work. These also allow me to estimate the likely workload most reliably.
Please note!
Please never send me your valuable original documents. Recherche-Dienste cannot accept any liability for any damage or loss.
How time-consuming is a transcription?
As a general rule, the older the document, the more difficult the handwriting is to decipher. This is not only due to changes in the shape of the letters, but also to earlier styles of writing and spelling.
Added to this is the context in which the document was written:
Was it written comfortably at a desk? In a jolting carriage? Or was the writer crouching, shivering in the rain, in a trench? Was it written in ink or pencil? What is the quality of the paper? What was the writer’s level of education? Was the text carefully formulated or jotted down ‘off the cuff’ – without full stops, commas or any regard for legibility?
And let’s not forget: ‘scribbles’ are not a modern invention. So it may well be that Grandma’s cake recipe from 1937 is harder to read than a hasty note by Goethe from 1798.
I would therefore ask for your understanding that I can only provide a reliable estimate of the time and effort involved once I have reviewed the documents.
Here you find a brief overview of the history of German cursive writing.