Transcribing Genealogy & Family History Records
Deeds, parish registers, wills, and census returns hold the family record, but most of it is handwritten and unsearchable. This hub covers transcribing genealogical sources and organizing them into a findable archive, so the bottleneck stops being the handwriting.
14 articles · page 1 of 2
Leo Team · October 4, 2026
How to Transcribe Old Family Letters: Dating, Reading and Recording a Family's Correspondence
A practical guide to transcribing old family letters. It covers handling and photographing them, dating them, reading the writer's hand and the conventions of letter writing, crossed letters and faded ink, and how to write and organise transcriptions your family can trust.
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Leo Team · October 4, 2026
Notarial Records for Genealogy: Finding and Reading the Acts Behind Marriages, Wills and Sales
A guide to notarial records for family historians. It covers what civil-law notaries recorded, why their acts often say more than a parish entry, how to find them in French, Dutch, Spanish and Italian archives, and how to read the formula of an act.
Leo Team · October 4, 2026
Probate Inventories: How to Read the Room-by-Room Lists, the Money and the Obsolete Words
A guide to probate inventories for family and local historians. It explains why they were made, where to find them, how they are laid out, how to read the hand and the money, and what the obsolete words for household goods mean.
Leo Team · October 4, 2026
Transcribing a Family Diary or Journal: Pencil, Private Shorthand and Dates That Don't Match
A practical guide to transcribing an old family diary or journal. It covers photographing bound volumes without damage, dating entries, reading pencil and private shorthand, transcribing dated entries, indexing people and places, and sharing a diary with your family.
Leo Team · October 4, 2026
Translating Latin Church Records Line by Line: Baptisms, Marriages and Burials
A worked method for translating Latin baptism, marriage and burial entries from Catholic, continental and early English registers. It walks through three example entries line by line and covers the grammar a non-Latinist needs, Latin dates and feast days, and the words that most often mislead.
Leo Team · September 17, 2026
Irish Parish Registers: What Survives, Where to Find the Images, and How to Read Them
What survives of Irish parish registers by denomination and custody, where free images and commercial indexes live, and how to read Latin or English entries without normalizing them.
Leo Team · September 17, 2026
Latin Genealogy Terms: A Working Glossary of the Words That Actually Appear in Parish Registers
Latin formulae, kinship terms, abbreviations, and case endings that actually appear in parish baptism, marriage, and burial registers, and why transcription must stay separate from expansion and translation.
Leo Team · August 10, 2026
Military Records Transcription: Reading Muster Rolls, Service Files, and Pension Papers
Military muster rolls, service files, and pension papers: how to transcribe each genre while preserving column structure, abbreviations, and separate evidentiary layers.
Leo Team · August 10, 2026
Passenger List Transcription: Reading Ship Manifests Column by Column
Passenger-list transcription of 1907 U.S. ship manifests column by column across both pages, joining them by line number so every field stays attached to the correct passenger.
Leo Team · August 6, 2026
FamilySearch Full-Text Search: What It Finds, What It Misses, and When to Transcribe the Image Yourself
FamilySearch Full-Text Search as a discovery layer on machine transcripts of unindexed records, where surnames most often fail, and when to open the image and transcribe it yourself.
Leo Team · July 22, 2026
Genealogy Record Transcription: How to Turn Family Records into Text You Can Trust
Genealogy record transcription explained as a discipline of verbatim, faithful copying of family records, covering transcription vs. extract/abstract, editorial conventions, record-type pitfalls (dates, parish registers, wills, censuses), and where crowdsourced indexing, OCR, LLMs, and specialist tools each fall short.
Leo Team · July 15, 2026
Transcribing Old Wills: A Working Guide for Family Historians
A practical guide to transcribing English wills from the 16th to 18th centuries, covering document structure, secretary hand, abbreviations, and when machine transcription helps or misleads.
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