Paleography tips - Nr. 1: How do I begin?

You are so happy to find an old document really containing the name of our ancestor! You can decipher that name. But how should the amateur researcher then start out to read the whole document?

The first task is - maybe we shouldn't even mention this - to carefully note down where you found the document (so you don't have to search the same place again, because you don't remember what you have looked through), what you know about the document, who has written it, where, when, and if there is a so called regesta (a very short summary made by  the archives), copy also that.

The best is to take a good resolution photo of the document. This means all the letters are well readable when we zoom into the photo.

The first step of reading is observing the handwriting. If you know some letters e.g. based on the known name, then those will probably look the same in the whole document written by the same hand.
Don't try to guess individual words. It is misadvised to only build upon the similarity with modern letters in just one word.
Always look at the other parts of the text, the words already known for sure, to check whether your interpretation is correct.
For this reason, if you ask others for help in reading your document, always send them a whole page or more from the same hand  or a link if you found it on the internet.

If you would ask us for help, please write us: info@historiaforditas.hu


 We wish you the best of luck in your research,

Judit and István
from Historia Translation


P.S. Have you found some Hungarian, Latin or German text and you don't know if it is worth translating? Let us make its abstract! You can learn who, when, where has written it, about what and to whom, so you can decide whether you need it translated. You can read the details on our webpage http://historiatranslation.com/abstract/.