Skill Building – Page 5 – International Institute of Genealogical Studies

Transcription Tuesday – Definitions

The National Institute for Genealogical Studies provides valuable online education for sharpening and refining the research skills used by all levels of family historians and genealogists. Our Basic Level courses cover a wide variety of topics, delivering foundational genealogical education all researchers. The basics of research extend far beyond pedigree charts and family group sheets! Experience only comes from Practice. In last week’s post (Transcription Tuesday – Practice!), we recommended several transcription websites to explore. We also suggested a few transcription projects to try your hand at transcribing actual historic documents. Did these help you? Did they identify areas where you need to practice more? The more you read old handwriting, the easier it will become. Practice, Practice, Practice! Definitions As we continue to explore how to develop our Transcription Skills, we need to take a few minutes this week to look at the main definitions to learn. Understanding each description, and the process associated with it, will help us to cultivate the core expertise for the transcription tasks required for every document we discover. Transcription Definition: A Transcription is a true word-for-word rendering of a document with the original punctuation and spelling (i.e., an exact copy of the original, line by line, sentence by sentence, word by word, and letter by letter). All notes and marks on any page are copied as faithfully as possible in the presented formatting. It includes all spellings, capitalizations and punctuations as it was written. No corrections are made to spelling or capitalization. It includes the whole record—front and back, with all its headings, insertions, endorsements, notations, etc. Abstract Definition: An Abstraction is an abbreviation of the original content in a document. It removes all the legal jargon or “boilerplate” language, but ensures that all relevant details within the document are kept. Mary Campbell Bell in Professional Genealogy sums it up this way: “Abstracts are summaries that record all important detail from a whole document.” Extraction Definition: An Extract is when you pull out only parts of the information in an original document. The extracting process is normally used for listings, such as censuses, inventories, tax or voters’ lists, etc., where there could be information about one person or family amongst many others. These three topics are covered in-depth in our Skills: Transcribing, Abstracting & Extracting course, including exercises and assignments designed to utilize the principles being taught in each module. Each has its place in our genealogical projects; Each is a research skill to perfect. So, continue…

Transcription Tuesday – Practice!

The National Institute for Genealogical Studies online courses provide genealogical education on a wide variety of topics for those beginning to research their family history, as well as professional genealogists, and everyone in between. It is worth repeating: all family history researchers, no matter what their level of expertise, should strive to acquire this core skill. We will use it over and over! As we work to develop our Transcribing Skills, we soon realize there is a learning curve involved. Most of us are familiar with common handwriting styles. We can transcribe modern handwriting with relative ease, except for those who never did develop good penmanship. Before email and texting, we sent handwritten letters – yes, by snail mail! In that time period, we all read cursive and not many people sent typed correspondence – it was all handwritten. When we began to gather family home sources, we could easily read the handwriting; but as our genealogy research reached further back in time, we had to adjust to various older scripts in documents and correspondence. These can soon become a challenge. It takes effort to decode handwriting – sometimes word by word, and sometimes letter by letter. Our biggest advantage is PRACTICE. The more we read old handwriting; the more we will become familiar with the letters and grammar used in that time period. The more we transcribe entries from a church register or civil registrations for a specific district; the easier it will become. Repetition helps us to memorize the variations in the letters. But how can we gain this experience? There are several courses with The Institute where transcription skills are taught and reenforced by assignments. Three highly recommended courses are listed below. Because most of the records we access are handwritten, it is imperative that we develop excellent transcription skills. Transcribing requires patience, perseverance and precision. Remember our Transcription Definition: A transcription is a true word-for-word rendering of a document with the original punctuation and spelling (i.e., an exact copy of the original, line by line, sentence by sentence, word by word, and letter by letter). All notes and marks on any page are copied as faithfully as possible in the presented formatting. It includes all spellings, capitalizations and punctuations as it was written. No corrections are made to spelling or capitalization. It includes the whole record—front and back, with all its headings, insertions, endorsements, notations, etc. Transcription Websites How can we practice?…

Transcription Tip: Finding George

Our students at The National Institute for Genealogical Studies are encouraged to access original documents whenever possible. These are usually either fully handwritten, or have handwritten entries on forms. It is advised to transcribe all of documents we gather for our research projects. As we continue to explore developing our Transcribing Skills, we will discover the value of spending the time necessary to transcribe our original documents, especially those that are hard to decipher. All family history researchers, no matter what their level of expertise, should strive to acquire these core research skills. See below for links to our courses designed to equip our students with this vital ability. When we search original records, we will encounter many different styles of handwriting, even when they are using the same script of a certain time period. Just as today, we all have our own handwriting styles. We tend to always make certain letters in the same way, but for other letters it may vary, even depending on the word we are writing, or where the letter is positioned in that word. In the same way that other people become accustom to reading our handwriting, we begin to recognize the handwriting styles of those clerks and census enumerators in the documents we are accessing. Specific characteristics show up on the same page or for the entries for a district, like in civil registrations or church records. We can easily tell when the entries are made by a different person. Today’s Transcription Tip is the use of Transcription Cheat Sheets. As you find letter variations written in documents, cut and paste them to a document. Create an Alphabet Checklist and use it to “break the code” and transcribe the words, even those with unfamiliar letters. Here is an example on FamilySearch that you can print out for future reference. If you are looking for help with transcribing documents from a different language, check out FamilySearch resources here. They also have lists of common words used in documents. You will begin to recognize these as you become more familiar with the records. Finding George When searching census records, civil registrations or church registers, you will be looking for specific names and surnames. In the same way, you can make a Name Cheat Sheet with all of the variations you have discovered. Be sure to check for spelling variations and take note of misspellings of the names and surnames. Entries may have been written phonetically, or…

Transcription Tip: Line Numbering

As The National Institute for Genealogical Studies students begin the October rotation of courses, we continue to explore the foundational research practise of developing Transcribing Skills. See below for links to our courses designed to equip our students with this vital ability. All family history researchers, no matter what their level of expertise, should strive to acquire these core research skills. When preparing to make a transcription, it is good practice to make a digital scan of the original document and then put the physical document away. This keeps your original safe with as little handling as possible. Once you have the copy, you can make a print out and mark on it as you wish. Viewing the digital image on your computer allows you to enlarge difficult-to-read sections. Today’s Transcription Tip is the use of Line Numbering. On your printed working copy (never the original!), number the lines on the page. This will keep you on track as you start transcribing. It is so easy to lose your place and skip to the line before or after the line you are working on, especially in a document with repetitive wording. If the lines are written unevenly, you may also want to draw lines between each numbered line to keep them separated to work on each individually. Remember our Transcription Definition: A transcription is a true word-for-word rendering of a document with the original punctuation and spelling (i.e., an exact copy of the original, line by line, sentence by sentence, word by word, and letter by letter). All notes and marks on any page are copied as faithfully as possible in the presented formatting. It includes all spellings, capitalizations and punctuations as it was written. No corrections are made to spelling or capitalization. It includes the whole record—front and back, with all its headings, insertions, endorsements, notations, etc. Transcribe each line word for word – EXACTLY as it is appears on your document. Keep all of the words together on their own line. Line 7 on your transcription should only have what is written on line 7 of your document. This makes it so much easier to go back later to work on the difficult-to-read letters of words on that line. Be sure to keep all of the original spelling, capitalization and punctuation. When all of the words on a line have been fully transcribed, mark it as completed on your working copy. When you step away and…

Transcription Tuesday: Handwriting

One of the very first basic skills to develop as a Transcriber is learning to read various handwriting scripts. Start with modern day cursive handwriting. If you cannot master every day current handwriting styles, you will really struggle with older scripts. Practice reading whenever you can. Read handwriting from different people. Everyone develops their own style. Learn to write in cursive yourself. It is a skill that will help you as you are trying to decipher handwritten documents. Soon you will be tackling more difficult handwriting on older documents. These are a few quick examples. The top one is an address from 1891. The first word “Davenport” is not too difficult. Knowing it was an address, helps us to figure out that the second word is “Road.” For this word, the “a” is clear and the “d” will become familiar with its upward curl. The “Ro” is more difficult. The word directly below it is “Richard” and has the same “R” at the beginning. The other two names beside it are both “Wm” – the abbreviation for William. They can look different, depending on who is writing it. These names are from Ontario Birth Registrations in 1880. The third example is a record from the Drouin Collection in 1791. The handwriting can be quite challenging, especially if the record is in French or Latin! Deciphering the text is compounded when having to translate from an unfamiliar language. If you are researching records in a language you do not understand, the Family Search Genealogical Word Lists will be very helpful to you. Another useful website is the Brigham Young University (BYU) Tutorial – Making Sense of Old Handwriting. You should bookmark it and explore the resources as you begin to develop your Transcription Skills. We will explore more aspects of reading old handwriting in next week’s Transcription Tuesday.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Remember: Transcribing takes practice and patience. Check back next week for more skill-building tips.Previous Transcription Tuesday blog posts:Census Names Transcription DefinitionTranscription Tuesday Index~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ These three core courses demonstrate Transcription principles. They are offered monthly, beginning on the first Monday of every month: Register today!Methodology-Part 2: Organizing and Skill-Building (Basic Level)Skills: Transcribing, Abstracting & Extracting (Basic Level)Palaeography: Reading & Understanding Historical Documents (Advanced)—————————————————-Visit our website for a complete list of online courses offered by The National Institute for Genealogical Studies. Check our Course Calendar here. Follow us on Social Media: Blog, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest. *Note: Please be aware our social media accounts are monitored regularly, but NOT 24/7. If you…