Karla I have yet to find a site that can translate which includes the intent, meaning, and verbage accurately, without a person looking over its shoulder telling them they are incorrect. A Babelfish translation for instance wished my wife "Gute Gesundheit" for her birthday, but came out as "Good Sanitary". So you can see a literal translation is difficult without the meaning and intent of the document being properly presented. The second major problem is that most older documents are written in the old script, which no longer is thaught in school, in fact it was sort of disbanded after WW2. Now the charge of $100 depends a lot on how many documents you have. If you have ten or more, it's a fair charge, less than that it's going a little overboard, unless they are long documents. For legal documents one also has to be careful to translate it correctly, naturely for legal reasons, as many words have more than one translation, which can change the meaning tremendously. In some cases it's also necessary to transcribe the document first before a translation can be attempted, especially hand written letters. Look for older German-Americans in your community to help you, most will do it just for experience and are usually glad that someone takes an interest in their mother tongue. Offer to pay them but you set the honorarium for their work. Go to the Family History Library (Mormons) in your area and inquire for someone who can help, or find local genealogical societies who can send you to someone. They usually have someone who translates. I have done it often and my prices are very high, usually 60 minutes an hour and if available a cup or two of coffee for a bonus. Good Luck, scratch that, Viel Glück. Guenter Loepertz Highland, MI ----- Original Message ----- From: "Karla Gleason" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, September 2, 2009 7:55:40 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [PRUSSIA-ROOTS] changing boundries? My grandfather, Wilhelm Ernst August Warnow, was born in Barth, Pommern, in 22 March 1879. I find Barth in Germany now, but in Prussia in 1879. I have several items that he must have brought over with him and would like to get them translated. Is there a site I can do that, reasonable? I had one person quote me $100. American money to translate just a letter to my grandfather from his sister still in Barth in 1939. He came to the United States around 1902, married my grandmother and they had 6 children. I am still fairly new to geneaolgy, so any help would be appreciated. Karla Warnow-Gleason          ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Hi! If you can email the letter I would be happy to translate it for you. No charge. Though it has been a while, my degree is in German. Erin Sent from my iPhone On Sep 2, 2009, at 8:23 AM, [email protected] wrote: > > > Karla > > I have yet to find a site that can translate which includes the > intent, meaning, and verbage accurately, without a person looking > over its shoulder telling them they are incorrect. A Babelfish > translation for instance wished my wife "Gute Gesundheit" for her > birthday, but came out as "Good Sanitary". So you can see a literal > translation is difficult without the meaning and intent of the > document being properly presented. > > The second major problem is that most older documents are written in > the old script, which no longer is thaught in school, in fact it was > sort of disbanded after WW2. > > Now the charge of $100 depends a lot on how many documents you have. > If you have ten or more, it's a fair charge, less than that it's > going a little overboard, unless they are long documents. For legal > documents one also has to be careful to translate it correctly, > naturely for legal reasons, as many words have more than one > translation, which can change the meaning tremendously. In some > cases it's also necessary to transcribe the document first before a > translation can be attempted, especially hand written letters. > > Look for older German-Americans in your community to help you, most > will do it just for experience and are usually glad that someone > takes an interest in their mother tongue. Offer to pay them but you > set the honorarium for their work. Go to the Family History Library > (Mormons) in your area and inquire for someone who can help, or find > local genealogical societies who can send you to someone. They > usually have someone who translates. > > I have done it often and my prices are very high, usually 60 minutes > an hour and if available a cup or two of coffee for a bonus. > > Good Luck, scratch that, Viel Glück. > > Guenter Loepertz > > Highland, MI > > > > > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Karla Gleason" <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Sent: Wednesday, September 2, 2009 7:55:40 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada > Eastern > Subject: [PRUSSIA-ROOTS] changing boundries? > > My grandfather, Wilhelm Ernst August Warnow, was born in Barth, > Pommern, in 22 March 1879. I find Barth in Germany now, but in > Prussia in 1879. I have several items that he must have brought over > with him and would like to get them translated. Is there a site I > can do that, reasonable? I had one person quote me $100. American > money to translate just a letter to my grandfather from his sister > still in Barth in 1939. He came to the United States around 1902, > married my grandmother and they had 6 children. I am still fairly > new to geneaolgy, so any help would be appreciated. > Karla Warnow-Gleason > > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] > with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and > the body of the message > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] > with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and > the body of the message