Family Search facility to translate foreign records?
Is there a facility within FamilySearch that translates foreign records? Patrons are able to access foreign Birth Marriage and Burial/Death records, and can identify the names of their ancestors in them, but are not able themselves to understand/translate the documents themselves. A means to translate such within FamilySearch is not obvious so I presume there is not one but want to confirm that that is (or is not) the case.
Best Answer
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The search display preference for "original" versus "translated" only affects those (few) indexes that have a translation entered for some of the fields. Mostly, as genthusiast says, it doesn't do anything.
FamilySearch's Research Wiki often has translations of column headers or examples of set formulas relevant to a particular record set. These can help to at least identify the record that one needs translated. If the handwriting style proves amenable, you may be able to get nearly all of an entry translated using the wiki and your favorite machine translator website. However, for some handwriting styles (such as German Kurrentschrift or those secretary hands that one encounters in older English parish records), finding the names and dates is as far as most people will get without expert help.
You can often get the needed help here in Communities. You can post to Research Help; it'll likely get redirected to a specialist group. If you prefer, you can bypass the redirection by finding and joining the relevant group and posting your question there.
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Hello @Joanna Rodwell
You may find help translating the the documents about your ancestors in the following resources:
There are a few helpful Links.
Best Wishes Maureen
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In the Search Preferences (now moved to top right of Search Results list) you can choose whether to display Original/Translated document. This indicates ability to translate as you wish - however it is a little unclear whether this applies for the index only or the entire text of a document. There is probably a Help Center document on this newer feature that should/could be consulted for a definitional answer ... and yes currently selection doesn't appear to change the document or index(?) - so maybe this just indicates future functionality ... otherwise as @maureenmarydawson1 refers - there are some translator apps and as @Julia Szent-Györgyi indicates below the FamilySearch Groups can be helpful too.
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Thank You for the above 3 comments/suggestions. I will have a look at them myself, and then share them with the patron concerned.
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The Language Options in Search> MORE OPTIONS> Preferences I refer to above - is 'defined' in the blog:
"Language Options
Further down the Preferences pane is a section titled Language Options. Here you can choose whether to view information how it was originally recorded and indexed or with slight clarifications (translations) that have since been added. A simple example would be an entry for “Jan 1855,” which, when clarified or translated, might appear as “January 1855.” "
This seems to indicate these options are mainly for 'future' translations not that it will show the complete text translated (but that would be a cool/nice feature - feel free to add it to New Idea).
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