Valens - 1750-1850 - Rupp&Zimmermann - jpg-to-text
I need to translate .jpg documents like the one attached from Swiss German to English. Does anyone know a way to do this?
Thank you
Diana
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The original topic title "Translating .jpg files from swiss german to english" has been adapted to reflect the later discussion topic - see the suggestion on https://community.familysearch.org/de/discussion/129680/what-title-would-be-best-for-postings.
Comments
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The only way I know of is to read it. This particular one is in Latin and is mostly just a list of people involved. People who are here on Familysearch community will help if you specifically point out which entry on which document.
On this document, these are children baptized in 1748. The first column is the child that is baptized, the second column are the names of the parents, the third column are the names of the witnesses or godparents.
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This is Latin? I have about 130 pages like this searching for two family lines starting mid 1700's to 1836's time period. Rupp, Zimmermann, and spouses?, too many entries to single them out.
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First of all - welcome to the group, @DianaDrexler - so let me start with a few general comments:
Whenever you ask for help with a certain document, always specify the location, e.g. with church records the parish, preferably in the topic title: this might attract the attention of a person already researching there, who would be in the best position to help you. I had proposed a structure for discussion titles on https://community.familysearch.org/de/discussion/129680/what-title-would-be-best-for-postings and hope for many opinions: what do you think about this? Alternatively you could just adopt this format in your future postings 😉. Your request is not one of the usual transliteration help requests, but a useful title could be e.g. Parish - 1750-1850 - Rupp&Zimmermann - jpg-to-text.
Whenever the resource is available online: always include a link. It is often useful to be able to view neighbouring pages.
As @sueungricht has already pointed out: there is no "ready to use" OCR programme for old handwritten documents. There are several research projects, working for long texts written by the same hand: as a first step several pages need to be transcribed by a human - this can then be used to "train" the programme. Wouldn't work in your case.
Again, as @sueungricht has already pointed out: it is mostly Latin (with the occasional word in German interspersed) - but most of the content are names. The Latin vocabulary is very limited - once you know half a dozen words, this should be sufficient for most entries (unless there are lengthy comments). So your major problem will likely not be the language, but the script.
Already the first entry includes a Zimmermann as mother:
Infans [child]
Baptizatus e(st) [baptised was]
Joseph Anton
3. Mart(ius) [March] 1748
Parentes [parents]
Joseph Antonius Küni [? knowing the parish would help!] et [and] Margaretha Zimmermännin [female form for Zimmermann] conjuges [not classic Latin, but means married couple].
Patrini [godparents]
Juvenis [young man] Ambrosius Mathiß, et virgo [virgin] Joanna Locherin [Locher] aus der [from the - and this is German] …[?].
Minro [? must be an abbreviation for priest, minister, or the like: he baptised the child] P. Antonio à [in/from - and this is French] Zuben [?? would be a reformed parish in Thurgau, whilst I assume your record to be from the Ragaz/Valens region in St.Gallen and catholic].
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An additional note.
Since these records are not indexed, you have to find your families the old fashioned, hard way--looking for them record by record, page by page. This handwriting is not too difficult. Once you focus on a name, you can start recognizing them as you go through the pages.
I know it is tedious, but it is so rewarding when you find the person you are looking for. I do a lot of Swiss research and it is mostly going page by page looking for names. Good luck.
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The records I need to access are restricted, so using Family Search's Lookup Request Service found two names who could be my target. Waiting for DNA results to hopefully point me in the right direction.
I copied over 130 records dated from mid 1700's to early 1800's from another film and need to contruct a tree for my target encompassing two families, Rupp and Zimmermann. But need to use the Lookup Request Service to bridge the gap to the 1900's. I am feeling a little overwhelmed right now.
Thank you for your guidance.
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Hello Diana,
as you didn't answer my implicit question about the origin (parish) of your record, I had to do a bit of sleuthing … and I could confirm my assumption of Valens.
There you have another source which will likely be helpful - the "Bürgerregister" of Pfäfers, which includes the citizens of Valens. These registers were introduced in the canton St.Gallen around 1833/35 and list entire families of the community's citizens. I have transcribed the first Rupp entry (Rupp Jacob, 1764-1835) on https://www.geneal-forum.com/phpbb/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=32588 (including a link to where these registers are available freely from home). The more recent volume 2 is not available online, but if you know what you are looking for (e.g. from a reference in vol.1) the State Archive staff will usually provide a screenshot (unless forbidden by privacy rules).
I don't really see, how DNA testing can help you effectively in your situation (which I might assess incorrectly). I therefore would recommend you register with geneal-forum (free and without any obligation) and "answer" to this topic, describing the proven(!) knowledge about your "oldest" ancestor. English is fine on the forum - you just may have to cope with responses in German - I recommend https://www.deepl.com/translator for online translations (much better than google).
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