G2G: 52 Ancestors Week 10: Translation

Question

From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 10

The theme for Week 10 is "Translation." Would any of your ancestors have needed someone to translate for them? Have you had to work with records in a language other than your own? No matter the language, it's a good time to write!

Turn on the universal translator and put the babelfish in your ear! It's a good thing the Tardis autotranslates languages. 

Comments

Does me translating my daughter's rapid-fire English into understandable everyday English for my dear old Mum count?  I was still doing that when the babe was 18, before I departed Australia for distant shores!
(She STILL speaks in rapid-fire, and these days I'm the one needing a translator!)

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Yes, I think that counts. Though, sometimes I need one when my nephews speak in memes.

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Translating Italian documents can lead to amazing discoveries: https://allroadhaverhill.blogspot.com/2023/03/52-ancestors-week-10-translation.html See how the magic happens!

Answer 1

A fellow Ancestry member also researching the Loock family kindly translated the Germany marriage record of my maternal great grandfather Albert Loock's brother Julius Loock.  Albert had immigrated to Canada and my mother grew up in his house.  Albert's brother Julius remained in Pomerania.

"For the purpose of getting married today appeared the tailor Julius August Johann Loock, son of master tailor Gottfried and his wife Wilhelmine Henriette Ziesemer."

Gottfried and Henriette were my 2nd great grandparents and Gottfried was a master tailor.  I was thrilled. Previously, I only had the Canadian translation on Albert's marriage record in Ontario. They wrote his mother's name as Fizeyemer Henvebe, which caused me to search for the non-existent Henvebe family.  So translating their problematic translation Henvebe was supposed to be Henriette and Fizeyemer was Ziesemer, but they reversed them, as if I was Miller Pat.  

Translation by people who know the language is precious.  Poor Albert had no idea what his mother was called in Canada.  A photo of Albert and my mother.

  

Answer 2

I have 2 lines that would have needed translators. My paternal 2 great grandparents came from Norway and my maternal great grandfather and his in laws came from Northern Italy. My northern Italy relatives already spoke 3 languages French, Italian and the local dialect so they were already use to different languages. I am currently working on my Northern Italian line and am having to translate records in French and Italian and occasionally a combination of the 2 languages.

Comments

Your Norske branch of the family came from Lesja municipality, Oppland county, Norway. Lovely mountain country. Your Norwegian family tree now goes back several generations, done by linking your tree  to a previously created WikiTree entry.  Best wishes!

Answer 3

I have a 4 or 5 page letter/commentary written in German by William James Page, Page-12283, husband of my great aunt. He always signed his name 'WJP'

Before WW1 he was a travelling salesman working mostly in Germany.

Just before war was declared he wrote this document and sent it to the family in England, he called it "Was ist los" I can translate the title with my high school German. The handwriting may be more difficult than the translation.

I keep meaning to scan it and post it on his profile and ask for translation help. Right now it is safely put away somewhere in the basement with all the other original family history docs. I put everything in the basement because of a major main floor reno and now can't find anything. When I find it I will scan it!

I have never quite understood why it was written in German, he was born in Limerick, Ireland in 1886 and had lived in England from about 1890.

Some one and I'm not sure who, said it was written in German because it was somehow safer. He did have quite a difficult time returning to England.

Answer 4

At the age of 23, my grandfather, Battiscombe Gunn ( https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Gunn-1707 ,    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battiscombe_Gunn ) published his first translation. In 1906 his translation from Ancient Egyptian of "The Instruction of Ptah-Hotep and The Instruction of Ke'Gemni" (from the Prisse Papyrus in Paris) was published. It is still in print today.

In later years, my father asked his father how many languages he knew (read, write, and speak where spoken (e.g., Sanskrit, which he could read and write,  is not now a spoken language)).  The answer was 21.

Answer 5

Both sets of my grandparents may have at least initially had trouble speaking with their spouse. My maternal grandmother and my paternal grandfather were raised as English-speaking Protestants, while my maternal grandfather and paternal grandfather were raised as French-speaking Catholics. My paternal side was in the area around Windsor, Ont., while my maternal side was outside of Ottawa, Ont.

Answer 6

I don't know if the persons represented by the profiles I chose to connect to the Big Tree needed a translation when they emigrated from Prussia (today's Poland) to the USA. It was an interesting path to connection though.

I started in the list of Germany Unconnected Profiles. There I found the profile of Stanislaw Mnichowski. His branch were 12 unconnected profiles. Among them his daughter Martha. Martha was listed also with Mnichowski, but her marriage record names her as Mnichowska, which complies to Polish naming customs. So I changed her LNAB to Mnichowska. I then added her husband Michael Kubiak. Checking his relatives on FamilySearch I saw that his cousin Amelia already had a profile and her husband Francis Farrington. But those two were also unconnected. (Later I saw that they were created by a user who in the meanwhile closed their WikiTree-Account.) When I went on to check the ancestry of Francis, I found the profile of his granddad created and connected. All in all about 20 profiles that will get connected to the Big Tree after the next update.

Answer 7

This is my great grandfather's, John Vaskie or Janos Viszokay, baptismal certificate from Hungary. Les Josa, may he rest in peace, interpreted it for me. The town my great grandfather was born in is now in Slovakia. This is one of my treasures, and it lives in an acid free folder. 

Comments

Hi John,

I checked out the profile of your greatgranddad. You say about the Miner's Certificate it "incorrectly says he was from Austria." When John was born in 1886, Hungary and Austria were unified to Austria-Hungary, So although John was born in the Hungarian part of the country, he was also born in Austria.

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Hi Jelena.

Thanks for the info! I will fix it.

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John, what a wonderful treasure you have—glad to known it is so well taken care of.

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Thanks Alexis! I appreciate your kind commenr!

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This is amazing John! I hope to find documents like this one for my husband's mother (paternal heritage).

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Thanks Eileen! I hope your search is successful!

Answer 8

Sadly, language can be the reason that people lose their connection. My father and his best friend Charles Markowitz were killed together when their plane was shot down in WWII. My mother had been writing his mother Ida Markowitz. I didn't realize that Ida only spoke Polish, and my mother's letters had to be read to her. This is a photo of Ida on the right with her mother and maternal grandmother.

Fortunately, the internet brought Charles' younger brother and me together, and he has shared photos and stories with me.

Comments

Another gorgeous photo Alexis all the 3 ladies look adored thank you for sharing

Answer 9

One of my favorite relatives is my 7th great granduncle, Laurens Claas van der Volgen, who was captured by the French and Indians during the "Schenectady Massacre", in 1690.  He was adopted by his Indian captors and remained with them for many years.  After his return, he became the translator for the Albany Commissioners of Indian Affairs.  https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Classez-2 , and https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Schenectady_Massacre .

Answer 10

Guten tag et bonjour!

I've been reading the Slave Narratives of former slaves and the dialect is very unique. You can figure out what they are saying more or less. 

Also, I might have to dig deep into my mother-in-law's paternal heritage with assistance from my father in law. She has roots in the Czech Republic. 

One of my cousins has ancestry in Louisiana and France. I had one semester of French in college. I can more or less translate French documents especially church records. 

I'm going to learn some German and Czech in the near future. 

Answer 11

This week USBH is featuring linguist Lorenzo Dow Turner and John Morton Finney who achieved 11 academic degrees and spoke numerous languages. He puts my 3 degrees to shame :-)

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1547893/52-weeks-of-us-black-heritage-notables-week-10-translation

Comments

11? Oh my.

Answer 12

Well, as a professional linguist with 20+ years working for SIL International, translation presumably runs in my veins. So, I'm not choosing profiles of my bloodline ancestors for this week's theme, but my "professional" ancestors. SIL was founded in 1934 by Cameron Townsend, and while I never met him, I am privileged to have met and learned from his close co-worker, Prof. Ken Pike, who became a role model for my linguistic career. Thanks to his inspiration (and many others'), I was able to contribute to a variety of translations, among them for the Rangi language and for the Swahili wikipedia. Languages are awesome!!!

Answer 13

I have many German and Italian ancestors, so I've gotten pretty good at extracting basic facts from a vital record. But I often can't get that far due to handwriting issues. I have a very hard time deciphering old handwriting in ANY language.

Even worse sometimes is trying to interpret documents written in my native language, English! Many times words have changed meanings or become obsolete. A great-uncle was listed in the census as a 'roller tender' at a flour mill. I was able to figure out, with a little help from Google, what that meant. But I had a lot more trouble figuring out that occupations of my Ohio ancestors involved in the pottery industry. Some of the the occupations I've found include 'jiggerman', 'batterout', and 'mold runner'. In high school I had a 'German-to-English' dictionary to help me translate words. I needed something similar to understand these words. Luckily, I found it online—"The Pottery Jobs Index"!

Answer 14

In the family tree is Andrew Hoerner, who was in the Revolutionary War:

His Find A Grave memorial shows photos of his headstone that was carved in German.

Answer 15

I have Welsh family members last name Griffith and I often ask my cousin's husband to translate Welsh records, from the 1800s, his first language is Welsh.

Answer 16

Heaven help me when I actually need a translator! My mom has ancestry from Ireland, and Germany, and my father's hail from Scotland and France, to name but a few. I have yet to locate documents "across the pond". It should be interesting to say the least!