
A personal interest in genealogy and family history causes me to wonder, is there a translation firm with specific experience in the translation of genealogical records? I've done extraction of data from (Church) Latin parish records into English, and I've translated plenty of modern birth and marriage records for clients. But it could be pretty cool to offer translation of parish records as a part of your service.
Here's an example of why it's a good idea to use a translator, even when you think you've learned enough Latin to get the info you seek for family history purposes. A friend has compiled a database of ancestral names from Polish parish records. Wherever the line ends, the men's names end with the letter 'i'. Why? Because the parish record said something like "Joannes, filius Simoni", meaning "Joannes, son of Simonus", or, in Polish, "Jan, son of Simon". In Latin, male names convert the '-us' to '-i' after a preposition. Few men's names in Polish or Latin actually end in '-i'.





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