Genealogical Word Lists

Many people have approached me and stated a reluctance to search for the European records of their ancestors because they fear they will have problems translating the documents. I found that translating my ancestors’ records was a challenge but it was not insurmountable or costly to overcome.

Most of the records that I have found were in a tabular format and this allowed me to use the genealogical word lists to easily translate most records. The column heading were typed and therefore easily read. I could then look through the wordlist for the appropriate language and find the translation for each column. The information found in each column was normally a name or a date. If it was not one of these it was the person’s occupation. I was able to find most of the terms found in the documents listed on the word lists. Remember that early Catholic Church records were recorded using Latin and not the native language.

There are various genealogy books that include a word list for their language but the most convenient resource that I use is the wikis found on familysearch.org.