Web Resources: Google Translate

If there's one tool that's a total necessity for people with an ancestry that spans multiple countries, then it's Google Translate.

Google Translate is a free online and app-based translator that can translate words, sentences, and whole blocks of text instantaneously. I will be discussing the web version as this is the one I use as a genealogy research tool.

In some cases, such as Belgium where my mum's ancestry takes me, you don't even need to cross the country borders to come across the three official languages of French, Dutch, and German [1]. When we take into account that Latin was also used historically, then that's 4 languages. Google Translate remembers your last three language choices, so if you have a multilingual document, such as a marriage record, then within a few clicks you can get a translation of a whole document. In addition, if you're not sure what language you're looking at, then Translate will do its best to detect the correct language.

Example of Google Translate in action.

For some languages, Translate can also read the original and the translation back to you, which can help immerse armchair genealogists (such as myself) into the world of our ancestors.

When I first started using zoekakten.nl (Site no longer around, 24/07/2018), I used Google Translate repeatedly to learn (and to remind myself) what the word for each type of record was. It took a while before I remembered that 'Huwelijksbijlagen' was for the marriage attachment records. But because the Translate site is so easy to use, I can quickly recheck a word without eating into research time.

There are three main ways of translating using the web interface of Google Translate:

• Translate text within the Google Translate textbox.
• Translate a website by entering a hyperlink in to the Google Translate textbox.
• Translate a website using the embedded Google Translate widget - like the one in this blog.

In conclusion, at the moment no computer translation is perfect. But, I'm certainly no polyglot, English is my mother tongue and I can understand only a small amount of Dutch. So being able to get a translation instantly that can give me the basics of a document or website in English from so many other languages is not only important, but essential. Make sure you bookmark it!

 

Links

Google Translate

Google Translate on Google+

Google Translate for websites

Cost:	Free
Language:	Many, including English and Dutch
Usability:	100%

Sidenote: There is also an app for smart phones that can translate directly from photographs taken by the phone! This app can also download language dictionaries, so you don't need to be online to get a translation (but the language files tend to be over 200 MB).

This is the second of my Google for Genealogy posts, the first covered Google Street View and is available here.

Footnotes:
1 The World Factbook. 2015. The World Factbook. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/be.html. [Accessed 26 June 2015].