Hello, Prussian fans ~ Alternatively, just a few years ago there used to be several sites that offered "back-translations". I would type a phase in English (straight forward, simple sentence construction, no contractions, check my spelling) and get the German translation of my phrase AND the translation of the German phrase back into English. These sites made tweaking my message very easy to do. Since I can no longer find such a site today, you can always back-translate manually to get an insight into what your message is telling someone. If anyone knows of any existing back-translating sites, please let me know. Meanwhile, this site is packed with language information: http://www.omniglot.com/ and free translation sites are listed for various purposes: http://www.omniglot.com/links/translation.htm . Julia "----Original Message Follows---- From: michael <mdearing@mhtc.net> Never say NEVER. One should not blindly use the sites. To see how good/bad they are, cut/paste some German you have received into them and read the English that results. Now, to use them wisely, create very simple English sentences, simple in structure and in tense. Diagram it. If you have more than one long horizontal line, break it up. Submit this to the online translator. Then take the translation, your book of German grammar, your book of German verbs, and your big German dictionary, and make sure of what you will be sending. Be familiar with German genealogical vocabulary. You will have to be anyway if you are doing family history research that involves German heritage, whether in Germany or the USA. Your result will be acceptable. Contrary to popular opinion, it does not have to be perfect. The English you get from Germany seldom is and it works. Ok, German is a high context language and English a low context one. That just means use more simple sentences rather than less. - Michael " _________________________________________________________________ Picture this – share your photos and you could win big! http://www.GETREALPhotoContest.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM&loc=us